Book Report #195 - The Confession

The Confession by John Grisham

Donte Drumm, a black high school football player, was convicted of raping and murdering a popular white high school cheerleader named Nicole. He confessed, so he must have done it, right? The thing is, he had an alibi and was tortured into a confession in a 15-hour ordeal with some cops. Everything was stacked against him, including the egos of the people in charge of his trial and conviction.

The week he's scheduled for his execution on death row, nine years after entering prison, a man named Travis Boyette asks to speak to a preacher in a church hundreds of miles from Donte's hometown of Slone in Texas. Boyette says he's a convicted rapist living in a halfway-house nearby. He's dying of a brain tumor and wants to come clean--it's he who raped and killed Nicole, and he can produce the body.

The preacher is torn but eventually decides to drive him to Texas to try to stop the execution, even though he knows he will be helping Travis violate his parole. Donte's lawyer, Robbie Flack, and his team scramble to do everything they can to get a stay, including getting the key witness to confess to perjury. Everything is gripping, as per Grisham's usual mastery, and the drive to Slone requires a chunk of time out of one's day because it's impossible to walk away as the minutes tick by to Donte's execution. Meanwhile the town of Slone is devolving into a race riot.

I don't want to include any spoilers so I'll only take you so far.

General consensus: Dovetails with Grisham's work of nonfiction, The Innocent Man. This story gets under your skin. You get the ordeal from the eyes of everyone involved--Donte's family, Nicole's family, the local police, DA, and judge, the legal team defending Donte, the preacher trying to do what's right. You get to see prison and death row from Donte's eyes. It's hard-hitting and important.

Book Report #146 - The Worst Date Ever or How It Took A Comedy Writer To Expose Africa's Secret War

The Worst Date Ever or How It Took A Comedy Writer To Expose Africa's Secret War by Jane Bussman

A British woman who wrote garbage columns on celebrities while hating Hollywood (I was about to say "Hollywood culture" but that's too generous) decided to make a change, and while reading Vanity Fair got a crush on a fetching American human rights activist (that's not generous enough) and followed him to Africa. Except he left Africa and said he'd be right back but he got busy and she was in Uganda on her own.

She was writing an article for the Sunday Times on the what was going down, and had to breeze by a remote school to volunteer teach. The whole thing was a fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants affair, and had allusions to celebrities throughout. How unnerving it was to read must have been a taste of how unnerving it was to actually have gone through it. Huge props to Jane.

In her nosing around, and in between her camera, computer and notebook being stolen, Jane uncovered that the bastard child army guy Kony actually was asking for peace talks and it was the very Ugandan government that was sabotaging them. Furthermore, it was to the selfish Ugandan government's benefit to force 1.6 million people out of their homes and into camps under the guise of security, but instead to take advantage of them and brutalize them. It wasn't to protect them from Kony at all.

The whole thing stinks to high heaven, and meanwhile other countries turn their head and let it go on. It's maddening and sickening and revolting and...let this sentence run in the background because it needs to go on for some time.

Jane discovered that the NGOs are actually unwittingly offsetting the corrupt government's budget by providing aid. Of course, the aid is necessary. It's too bad the system in which it's being delivered is such a colossal mess.

General consensus: Highly readable. Hugely shocking. Vital message (about Uganda, of course, but there's also some stuff about Hollywood that will surprise). Suggest you read it, and get back to me.

Book Report #57

Between Worlds: The Making of an American Life by Bill Richardson

It's no secret that I'm a big supporter of Bill Richardson's for the next President of the United States of America (second choice - Stephen Colbert). Bill would be over-qualified for the position if it were possible. That's why when I saw his autobiography at Costco I practically ran to the register to buy it. Since I like to think of myself as a well-informed voter I wanted to be able to spout off statistics about dear Bill should anyone ask.

The problem when I sat down to read the book was that it was horribly boring. It was basically a list of his accomplishments and the people he's met along the way. Since I've never met any of these people or experienced any of this stuff with him it made it pretty difficult to stay focused. I'm not sure I can blame all that on Bill, though. Non-fiction books these days seem to be the product of the publishers who structure how the books are written based on what the market requires. I'm afraid they got this one wrong, though. What people really want in a memoir are well-told stories that help the reader get an understanding of what shaped the person, not just categorical statements run together that you are supposed to accept as fact. So with that in mind I want to assure you that when I co-write John Isner's book you're going to have a hell of a great time.

General consensus: Bill definitely had his heart in the right place.