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Friday, August 31, 2007
Bow down before Melissa Fay Greene
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Last year, the first for the Decatur Book Fest, I went to hear Melissa Fay Greene, the award-winning Decatur author of several memorable non-fiction books. The auditorium at DeKalb Library was so packed it’s a good thing the Fire Marshall didn’t show up. At least folks appreciate her.
This year I get to introduce her at the DBF, so at least I’ll get a seat this time. It’s 3:45 p.m. Sunday at Decatur Presbyterian Church.
If you don’t know her books, you really need to try one. They’re recent history, on various topics, but so well researched and written they read like great novels. Her first book, “Praying for Sheetrock,” was about this poor community on Georgia’s coast completely oppressed by a corrupt political system. That one won the Robert F. Kennedy Book Award, among others. Then came “The Temple Bombing,” about the attack on an Atlanta synagogue in 1958, which was a National Book Award finalist. Her third book, “Last Man Out,” took us deep into a mining disaster in Nova Scotia, and was a New York Times Notable Book.
Last year she published “There Is No Me Without You,” which was about AIDS in Ethiopia. Specifically, an orphanage for babies whose parents have died of AIDS, run by a woman whose daughter died of AIDS. How depressing, I thought. I should read this, but I don’t want to.
Then I did, and of course, it was magnificent: sometimes sad and tragic, but not depressing. It was named a Best Book of 2006 by Publishers Weekly, the Christian Science Monitor and the Atlanta Journal Constitution.
Melissa Fay Greene speaks truth to power, and does so eloquently. There is no one at this DBF I admire more.
If you know Greene’s work, what is your favorite? If you don’t, did I convince you to give her a try?
See you at DBF this weekend.
GABALDON UPDATE I’m told by DBF folks that Diana Gabaldon will be signing books at 12 noon Saturday at Decatur Presbyterian Church. She is not on the printed schedule, and as of yesterday had not even been added to the website schedule, but she is definitely gonna be there. So you Gabaldon fans, get over there and say hello. The crowd might be a lot thinner than usual and you might have more of a chance to have an actual conversation.
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