Here's a review of a book Mary Winstead wrote about the civil rights era and one of the big cases during that period:
Back to Mississippi: A Personal Journey Through the Events that Changed America in 1964
By Mary Winstead
Hyperion (Hardcover, $22.95, ISBN: 0786867965)
Publication date: August 2002
Description from Publishers Weekly:
Although Winstead was born into a family of storytellers and possesses a promising tale, the pedestrian style and rickety structure of this memoir defuse what could have been a riveting and revealing historical account. The story concerns her discovery of her fathers cousins involvement in the 1964 murders of three civil rights workers in rural Mississippi. Amid the ragged juxtaposition of bits of research with unabsorbing details of daily life, Winsteads periodic sketches of the victims (James Chaney, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner) are often more intrusive than significant. This is also the case with her depiction of cousin Edgar Ray Preacher Killen, who coordinated the killings and was released in 1967 by a deadlocked state jury. (According to Winstead, his case will be tried again soon, and Mississippis attorney general has named him as the states main suspect. He did not talk to Winstead for this book.) Winsteads colorless retelling of growing up in Minneapolis during the 1950s and 60s, with occasional trips to visit her fathers Mississippi family, suggests comparison with Diane McWhorters Carry Me Home (2001). Alas, writing ones life does not always mean examining it. Winsteads acceptance of the notion that most people in Philadelphia [Miss.] believed that the whole thing was a hoax calls for greater scrutiny of her source, the Meridian [Miss.] Star. Andrew Goodmans mother tells Winstead the event was a very important time in the nations history, and that for a long time not much was said about it at all. Winstead adds little to that record. Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
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