Novelist LaShonda Katrice Barnett discusses her debut novel, Jam on the Vine, how becoming a historian taught her about plot, Muslims living in Texas in the 19th century, and the Missouri State Penitentiary, also known as “the bloodiest 47 acres in America.”
People have been writing about civil rights for years, but it’s taken Hollywood until now to warm up to the subject (of course, not enough). Bill Morris traces the history…
In The New York Review of Books, Francine Prose analyzes “the recent controversies about the accuracy of ‘historical’ films” in Hollywood, concluding that maybe “the real source of controversy isn’t…
Over at the NYRB, Darryl Pinckney deconstructs Ava DuVernay’s Selma, starting from seat of a laymen cinema-goer, and then tying it all back to what actually happened.