![]() “MacLean has a keen eye for symbol and metaphor. . . For both public and academic audiences, the “observations and hypotheses” on offer here provide an important rumination on what it means today for a state to encounter – and possibly overcome – its legacy of racial violence.” — David Cunningham, Brandeis University “Harry MacLean proves it yet again: Take a simmering controversy, a tense courtroom, and a pressing need for social context, and America has no better literary guide than MacLean. In The Past is Never Dead, he focuses his considerable storytelling talent on Mississippi’s attempt to resurrect itself from the horrors of its segregationist past as James Ford Seale is brought to trial for his role in the deaths20of Henry Dee and Charles Moore. MacLean brings the epic trial to life while he translates modern Mississippi’s struggles for tranformation. A powerful, timely book about the misunderstood, modern South.” – Stephen White, author of THE SIEGE “Even decades after the Civil Rights Movement wrought real change throughout the United States, Mississippi remains ground zero for what can be called the ongoing drama of racial inequality. This is the ground Harry Maclean walks in this fierce, moving, and tremendously engaging book.” – Henry Louis Gates Jr. “Lawyer MacLean (In Broad Daylight) recounts the story with momentum, clear legal explanations and stirring empathy for each character—from Charles Moore’s grieving brother, Thomas, to Charles Edwards, a Klansman and the key to Seale’s conviction. Most masterful is his treatment of Seale himself. Without ever telling the story from Seale’s point of view, but instead describing how the defendant is seen through the eyes of others, MacLean accomplishes the tricky task of giving a monster pathos of his own.” – Publisher Weekly |
Nominated for the William Saroyan International Prize for Writing“The Past Is Never Dead”
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