By
Arthur McCulloch, on February 22nd, 2010
This is the second installment of our new series, “Read This Book Now.” Put aside everything you’re doing and read Reap immediately. (See the other entries here.)
Reap, by Eric Rickstad, is a coming of age story set in rural Vermont, where life is bleak and there is little hope of a future. Jessup Burke, an easily distracted, over-trusting youth stumbles into the company of Reg Cumber, a callous ex-con who introduces him into a ruined and paranoid world of drug trafficking.
Reg and Jessup’s worlds intersect when Reg nearly runs down Jessup with his car. Reg, a mechanic by trade, pledges to resurrect Jessup’s inoperable Vega. Lured by prospect of finally being able to visit his out-of-state girlfriend, Jessup agrees to work for Reg, unaware at first that he’s getting paid for harvesting and transporting drugs. Despite sudden moments of fear and unease, Jessup welcome’s Reg’s company, and soon the older man is introducing him to abusing booze and weed.
Rickstad captures the youth and innocence of Jessup, his habit of daydreaming and mooning over his girlfriend, Emily, without being sappy or sentimental. Jessup’s character undergoes complex changes as he is gradually corrupted. As Jessup sheds his adolescence, Rickstad (with wonderful directness and careful prose) allows him to grow increasingly aware of some of his circumstances while retaining a boyish obliviousness to others. …
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By
Marc Velasquez, on February 15th, 2010
This is the first part of our new series, “Read This Book Now.” Each week, for the next few months, one of our contributors will recommend a single book. Put aside everything you’re doing and read it immediately.
I found The Autobiography of Malcolm X on the sale table of an Orlando bookstore. Years earlier, a friend of mine had read it for class—he called it the greatest thing he ever read—and told me it should be at the top of my reading list. I took his reaction for hyperbole, and ignored his suggestion. But when I saw The Autobiography of Malcolm X on sale, I thought, “What the heck? For $4.99, why not?”
I like books, but I have never reacted to a book the way I did to The Autobiography of Malcolm X. It was all I could think about. For weeks, my conversations with co-workers all started with the phrase “When Malcolm X was….” I carried the book in my back pocket and read it whenever I had a free minute. It took over my life in a way that no book ever had, or has since.
I wasn’t sure why the book captivated me the way it did. There are very few similarities between Malcolm X and I, and he doesn’t seem like a person with whom I would immediately identify. Yet I did.
In retrospect, I believe that my love for this book came from my background in literature. The Autobiography of Malcolm X is the closest thing to an epic we have in American literature, and Malcolm X is the closest we have to an epic hero. (I know, you’re going to make the case for Moby Dick or The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, and you may have a point. But this is my review, so I stand by my assertion.)
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