What exactly happened to Detroit?

Detroit gets a lot of press and it’s mostly bad. It’s usually about how the city’s going broke, how the crime rates are scary and how the politicians are literally, turning off the lights. But then, you see flashy car ads that remind you that this is a city with a lot of fight. In Scott Martelle’s Detroit: A Biography, he reminds Detroit that it’s going to need more than fight.

I thought Detroit: A Biography started off a little boring. I’m not a history buff so all the humdrum about the founding members of the city didn’t really interest me. But this is not a historical textbook about a city. Martelle weaves citizen stories and anecdotes into the book making it a true biography.

What I found really interesting was auto industry boom in Detroit. We hear so much about the failings of the auto industry today, it’s easy to forget that cars were the lifeblood of so many North American cities. In Detroit, it created jobs, opportunities and brought in workers from all over the United States and around the world.

Cars also allowed for the creation of suburbs – which were the places where whites moved to stay clear of black neighbourhoods. But Martelle shows that blacks moved to the suburbs too when they did well. The result is that lots of people moved out of Detroit. In 2009, a mayoral candidate attributed the city’s lower murder rate to the low population:

“I don’t mean to be sarcastic, but there just isn’t anyone left to kill.” (Stanley Christmas, Detroit mayoral candidate 2009)

It’s interesting that Detroit’s relationship with the auto industry was never perfect. Massive lay-offs, union disputes and racial segregation were common in the factories. Martelle repeatedly states that the auto industry never really gave back to the city of Detroit.

Yes, I realize Jaguars aren’t American but I love this photo.

The book offers hope for Detroit in the citizens that have stayed or are willing to move back into the city. But he also shows the difficulties a lot of these people are facing.

While Martelle acknowledges that Detroit citizens are tough, it will take brains to get this city going again.

City of Industry by Brian Day

Photo credits: 500px.com

Passing Love is all that jazz, love & lies

*A big thank you goes to Hachette Books for sending me Passing Love via the Ontario Blog Squad‘s blogger meet-up. Passing Love by Jacqueline E. Luckett is available today!

Passing Love is a romance from start to finish. Nicole Handy leaves her home in California and against everyone’s wishes, goes to Paris for a month. What she finds there is more than the magnificent architecture in Paris, she finds her own story. But what she ultimately finds out is that history is indeed something to leave in the past.

The best part of Passing Love is when Nicole traces her aunt’s history in Paris, dating all the way back to the post-War jazz scene. The setting is rich, luxurious and scuzzy at the same time. And without the morality policing and discrimination faced by blacks in the Southern U.S., it’s no wonder that so many African-American musicians gathered in Paris during this time. Nicole’s aunt, RubyMae, is glamourous, precocious and well, she makes poor decisions. But she’s also everything that Nicole is not.

Photo credit: Martin Soler (martinsoler.com)

I had a problem with the pace of Passing Love. I wasn’t hooked until about 40 pages in. I fear many readers will give up on the book before it gets really good – and it does get very good. Nicole also runs into a lot of the same people over and over again in random places all over Paris. It’s too much of a coincidence for a city as large of Paris! If I were Nicole, I’d be asking all these random French men why they were stalking me.

Each chapter also starts with vocabulary list from Nicole’s French dictionary. I initially found the lists awkward and reminded me of my elementary school French textbooks. But as the story progresses, I started to see more meaning behind those vocabulary lists.

But Passing Love does a great job of describing the passion behind love – the kind that defies all sense of logic and reason. For some, it’s for a man or a woman but for RubyMae and Nicole that love is for Paris. Luckett tells a convincing doomed love story between people but ultimately makes us all fall in love with a city.

Related Penguins: Gopnik’s Paris to the Moon – a beautiful snapshot, The Sweet Sweeper reminds us how far we’ve come – or have we?

Photo credits: martinsoler.com

Known to Evil by Walter Mosely

Walter Mosely is is highly praised for a number of things: 1) for being a bad-ass black writer,  2) for writing about horrific crimes and 3) for being one of the best American writers of all time.

I can confirm that all three of these praises are true! Known to Darkness features a black detective named Leonid McGill who straddles the line of legality dangerously. Involved with the deepest, darkest (I’m not referring to skin colour) criminals, Leonid also has friends in the police and enemies everywhere.

Mosely goes where no one dares go by actually talking about being black. Leonid plays into the stereotypes where it’s convenient because people love when their expectations are reconfirmed. Only Leonid uses all his criminal skills (lying, beating and smiling) to save a girl that a mob boss has asked him to protect at all costs. The twist is that Leonid has no idea how this mob boss knows this girl or if he will hurt her. Oh, and he’s also not allowed to speak to the girl.

What makes Mosely an amazing writer is that he can write well about horrific murders, underworld criminals and the every day nuances of life. From describing a mutilated body to how his cheating wife’s lipstick is smudged, Mosely does it with such care and flair. I will definitely read another book in the Leonid McGill series.

Photo credits: etsy.com, voxpopulideco.com