Local authors deserve to be present(s) under the Christmas tree

by Ed Felien
published November 03, 08

There are some excellent books out there this holiday season written by local authors that deserve a local audience. I don’t know if it will reduce the carbon footprint, but if you buy locally you’ll probably end up with a better idea of who you are and how you think.

Ellen Hawley’s latest novel, “Open Line,” is about a late night radio talk show host who throws out the idea that maybe the Vietnam War was just a hoax. People start talking. Eventually, Vietnam vets start talking about what they saw and did. What starts out as a prank develops into a painful and profound statement about war, politics and the media chasing its tail.

“Where People Like Us Live,” by Seward resident Patricia Cumbie, is a sensitive and loving book for teens about angst and alienation and how that gets compounded moving into a new neighborhood. It’s also about the redemptive value of friendship. Perfect for the young teenager on your list.

“City of Parks,” by David C. Smith, is a shortened history of the development of the Minneapolis Park system. It’s a fascinating book for anyone interested in the history of the parks or the city or what made the whole thing happen over a hundred years ago. Did you follow the Nicollet Island controversy where De La Salle wanted to take park land and a city street to build a football stadium last year? The cry, “Remember Nicollet Island!” was a rallying cry over a hundred years ago when the leaders of the city were reminded how they lost the opportunity to save valuable land in the middle of the city for a park. History does repeat itself. If you love the Minneapolis parks, you should pick up the book to gain an appreciation of the struggle it took to save the land and build a system that most observers consider the best in the nation.

“Markings” is a curious and wondrous book to put on your coffee table this season. Minnesota photographer Maxwell MacKenzie has taken aerial photographs of farm fields, forests and other natural phenomena and made them into magical koans. Each photograph at first puzzles you.

It is familiar and at the same time very strange, and the poetry on the opposing page seems to spring to life at the suggestion of the image. Each pairing is a miraculous meditation.

Finally, a ringer. Thomas Frank’s “The Wrecking Crew” deserves to be included in this compendium, not because he is a local author, but because he was the only author who actually sought me out and came to my office to discuss his book. Frank’s first book, “What’s the Matter with Kansas?,” showed how Republicans were able to use wedge issues like abortion and gay rights to get poor people to vote against their self interests. In “Kansas” he explains how a Republican-brainwashed Joe the Plumber (who is not a licensed plumber, who owes back taxes, who is actually not named Joe, and who would benefit from the Obama tax cut for people making less than $250,000 a year) could think Obama’s ideas are socialistic! Frank’s latest book details how the Republican Party seemingly systematically made whole sections of the Roosevelt New Deal unworkable and then privatized them and made them lucrative.

It is a tale of unprecedented corruption and greed. It centers on the rise and fall of Jack Abramoff, but only as an example that proves the general rule. I argued with Frank that he ignored the greatest thief of them all, George W. Bush, whose company Halliburton was the most obvious beneficiary of the war in Iraq and its consequent inefficiencies; the privatization of the war in Iraq directly transferred responsibilities and wealth to Halliburton in multi-billion dollar no-bid contracts—and no one raised a whimper. Although “The Wrecking Crew” leaves out George W. Bush’s illegal actions, it is a compelling portrait of the decadence of modern Washington, D. C. It’s a good beginning toward understanding how we got to the sorry state of affairs that is the ending of the Bush presidency.

Here are five good books that could help distract and amuse you in your hibernation for the coming winter. Stay warm! Keep reading!