Cassiopeia, contributor of the group reading 20 Minutes Books, recommend you Midnight in Atlanta by Thomas Mullen, published on May 5, 2021 by Éditions Payot & Rivages.
His favorite quote:
“Perhaps the best way to reform the system was from the outside, after all. Maybe it was better that way. Maybe he hadn’t just given up. »
Why this book?
- Because Thomas Mullen weaves his story with fictional characters evolving in a historical period that he has carefully studied. We come across real events here and there and his whole story rings true. This is what I appreciate above all in his writings. We really have the impression of living the situations. We feel the tensions, the fear, the small victories. We revolt with those who fight, we clench our fists, we howl in the face of so much injustice, bad faith, lies and manipulation.
- Because the writing is powerful, the text rich, complete. We learn a lot about the United States of the 1950s by discovering these adventures. The investigation is far from simple, the false leads and the ramifications are numerous, the past life of each protagonist will resurface in different ways, all this makes the text more and more addictive. The protagonists are all interesting in their development, especially McInnis: they have their flaws, they are human and therefore imperfect.
The essentials in 2 minutes
L’intrigue. The black boss of a newspaper is killed. White police find suspects and look no further. An ex-cop turned journalist, helped by his former police colleagues, will lead the investigation.
Characters. Smith, former policeman, turned journalist. McInnis and Boggs, police officers he worked with. White or black police. FBI agents. Women.
Places. Atlanta.
The time. In 1956.
The author. Thomas Mullen, born in 1974 in Providence, Rhode Island, is an American novelist, author of detective novels. In 2006, he published his first novel, The Last Town on Earthwith which he won the 2007 James Fenimore Cooper Prize for historical fiction.
This book was read with various emotions as I lived what I read. The revolt inhabited me, the hope too, the anger against injustice but when we see the evolution of some, we can close the novel by saying that we must believe in man.
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