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A review by mckatkat
The Evidence of Things Not Seen by James Baldwin
5.0
I picked up this book on a whim in the late morning, and finished it before dinner. I've only read a couple of James Baldwin essays before, so I'm sure most of what I just experienced was just the impact of his writing in general, but this is an incredible, and hard to describe, work.
It's not "organized" but it follows a logic- it's like when someone asks a question and doesn't believe the answer they've given, so they have to examine why someone would answer it that way and why they don't believe the answer and ultimately, if the "real" answer being known is even the point once you've gone down the path of the "why." This isn't a true crime book, this is a man trying to understand how he feels about a single fact of a crime.
Specifically the crime here is the Atlanta Child Murders, and Baldwin is trying to understand how the conviction of Wayne Williams for the murders of two adults also deemed him guilty of the murders of twenty eight children. If you're not from Atlanta or not familiar with the case, this won't really teach you about the concrete facts of either, because it's about how that one answer that ended the case made James Baldwin think about race, society, capitalism, history, and philosophy. I'm from Atlanta and know the case, so if you're not, I genuinely don't know if you need to learn a bit before going in. Also, because of that I don't know if this is a great book, or just a work by James Baldwin that happens to be a bit more personal to me.
Absolutely amazed.
It's not "organized" but it follows a logic- it's like when someone asks a question and doesn't believe the answer they've given, so they have to examine why someone would answer it that way and why they don't believe the answer and ultimately, if the "real" answer being known is even the point once you've gone down the path of the "why." This isn't a true crime book, this is a man trying to understand how he feels about a single fact of a crime.
Specifically the crime here is the Atlanta Child Murders, and Baldwin is trying to understand how the conviction of Wayne Williams for the murders of two adults also deemed him guilty of the murders of twenty eight children. If you're not from Atlanta or not familiar with the case, this won't really teach you about the concrete facts of either, because it's about how that one answer that ended the case made James Baldwin think about race, society, capitalism, history, and philosophy. I'm from Atlanta and know the case, so if you're not, I genuinely don't know if you need to learn a bit before going in. Also, because of that I don't know if this is a great book, or just a work by James Baldwin that happens to be a bit more personal to me.
Absolutely amazed.