Books Set in North America: United States, Atlanta, Georgia

In the Neighborhood of True, by Susan Kaplan Carlton (2019)

In the Neighborhood of True is a coming-of-age novel set in 1958 Atlanta, Georgia.  Ruth Robb’s father recently died, so her mother packs Ruth, her sister Nattie, and they move from New York City to Atlanta, Georgia to live in her grandparent’s guest house.  Ruth’s mother grew up in Atlanta society and was Queen of the Magnolia Ball, as well as a handful of other balls.  Ruth’s grandmother, Fontaine, is all set to send her granddaughters into the debutante season.

Atlanta society is white and Protestant.  Ruth’s late father was Jewish and Ruth’s mother converted.  Ruth and her sister have been raised Jewish.  This would be a stumbling block to enter Atlanta society.  Ruth and her sister attend the private school, Covenant, that was established after the ruling in Brown v. Education, so it wasn’t subject to integration.

Ruth quickly falls in the popular girls and learns Southern etiquette from the little pink pamphlet her grandmother has given her.  She decides to keep the fact that she is Jewish a secret so she can be accepted with her new friends.  She also falls hard for Davis Jefferson, the handsome young classmate.  He is attracted to her, too.

Ruth and her mother come to an agreement, that Ruth can go to school dances provided she attend Shabbos services on Saturday mornings.  The rabbi at the local synagogue is pushing for civil rights.  Ruth is walking a fine line between her religious upbring and her desire to fit in with her classmates.

Ruth is aware of the violence towards Blacks and learns about the lynching of Leo Frank in the early 1900s.  As the story leads to an act of violent antisemitism, Ruth is faced with a moral dilemma.

This story was based on an actual act of antisemitism that occurred in October 1958 in Atlanta, Georgia.  Although 60 years have lapsed since, antisemitism is on the rise.  Many synagogues in the South have police protection during Friday and Saturday services.  The attitudes and events of this novel could conceivably occur today.

Read: May 26, 2021

5 Stars

Books Set in North America: United States

Sisters in Law: How Sandra Day O’Connor and Ruth Bader Ginsburg Went to the Supreme Court and Changed the World, by Linda Hirshman (2015)

 

In many ways, Justice Sandra Day O’Connor and Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg couldn’t have been more different.  O’Connor grew up as the only child of a rancher.  She got her start in politics by volunteering for her local Republican committee.  From there, she entered state politics.  She also felt it was important to cook and keep the home tidy for her family.  She held conservative views.  Ginsburg was essentially an older child (an older sister had died when Ruth was 2 years old) and became and ACLU attorney.  She had a husband how cook and was a strong advocate for her advancement to the high Court.  She was far from conservative.

 

O’Connor was the first female Supreme Court Justice.  As such, she had to face 8 male Justices who in their hearts really didn’t want women on the Court.  The author gives the impression that O’Connor, while a trailblazer by being the first woman on the Court, was tentative in her decisions and didn’t make waves.

 

Ginsburg, on the other hand, had a history with the ACLU advocating for equality for men and women long before she joined the Court.  She had argued before the Supreme Court numerous times and suffered only one adverse Court opinion.  In her advocacy, she was taking steps to advance the rights of women.

 

If anyone believes that the High Court is without politics and partisanship, this book will dispel any such beliefs.  The author describes both the politicking behind getting justices on the Court as well as the politics of the Justices during the deliberation process.  Although the title of the book suggests that both O’Connor and Ginsburg “changed the world”, cases following O’Connor’s departure began a slow erosion of the advances that Ginsburg had made as a practicing attorney.  Ginsburg became famous for her dissents, many of which she would read in open Court.  The author suggests that, perhaps in the future, Ginsburg’s dissents will become the law of the land.

 

It was an interesting book, and provides an insight into the workings of the Court.  The author attempts to digest many of the decisions in a comprehensible manner.  (Supreme Court decisions are famously vague to a non-attorney).  I did find parts of the book a bit dry, so had to put in down several times.

 

Read:  December 31, 2020

 

3 Stars

 

Books Set in the United States

Showdown: Thurgood Marshall and the Supreme Court Nomination that Changed America, by Will Haywood (2015)

Showdown, by Wil Haywood describes the nearly month-long confirmation of Thurgood Marshall to the United States Supreme Court.  In 1967, President Lyndon Johnson was determined to appoint a Black man to the High Court.  Thurgood Marshall had made a name for himself as being a highly-talented attorney who had argued many civil rights cases before the High Court.

The Civil Rights were a hot button political issue in the United States in the 1960s.  As determined as Johnson was to appoint a Black to the Supreme Court, were the several Southern arch-segregationist senators equally as determined to keep Marshall off the Bench.  The Senate Judiciary Committee was headed by Mississippi Senator James Eastland.  Other senators recognized Marshall’s talents.  The battle by the segregationists, however, waged for nearly a month before Marshall was ultimately confirmed.

The author gives plenty of background into the players.  Several of the events that are recounted in the book occurred in Louisiana, although these are less well known than the bombings in Birmingham, and the sit-in in Greensboro.  The author also describes the events in Johnson’s life that led him to be a champion for civil rights.

I highly recommend this book as it gives a portrait not only of the events leading to the confirmation of a Supreme Court Justice, but of race relations in America during the 1960.

Read:  July 9, 2017

5 Stars