Book Review of "Death in The West: Fatal Stories From America's Last Frontiers" by Chris Becker

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Death in The West: Fatal Stories from America's Last Frontiers. [Soft Cover]

by Chris Becker

224 pages, $16.95

ISBN-13: 978-0873588935

Nonfiction

Review by Steven King, MBA, MEd

Diving into underwater caverns, scaling insurmountable mountains, or defying natural consequences of exploration, Americans are attracted to anything that produces a thrill. The adrenaline rush causes our hearts to beat faster and our spirits to soar. Adrenaline junkies are seldom satisfied unless they are defying death.

Whatever your vice for an adrenaline rush-do not strap yourself into a lawn chair and tie 45 helium-filled balloons to it. Your intention might be to rise to the top of the trees but you might find yourself spotted by airliners at 16,000 feet instead. Larry Walters, or Lawnchair Larry, as his neighbors in San Pedro came to know him, did just that in 1982. Unless, of course, you desire to be arrested - just like Larry was when he landed.

Becker writes of stories such as this in a powerful way to show where the odds catch up to thrill seekers. For every success, a handful of people die. It is unfortunate to be caught in the wrong place at the wrong time, but it can also have deadly consequences.

Sometimes, the Grim Reaper arrives as the result of really bad choices. If lightning strikes, the best refuge is not in a rock crevice where electricity can jump across side to side and destroy what is between. It is never advisable to hike into unfamiliar territory, without a compass, map, or extra clothing, and not tell someone your anticipated route. Becker's testimony rings clear: take precautions and provisions, or your next trek might be your last.

In spite of our best efforts, however, we are totally at the mercy of Planet Earth. Natural calamities abound and chances are, if you are in the wrong place at the wrong time, you might not return. Avalanches bury people, mudslides wipe out entire towns, and destructive fires burn across the landscape with apparent vengeance.

Sharks can mistake humans for natural food sources and grizzly bears can attack with little or no provocation. Mountain lions might stalk a hiker down a pathway and then attack for a late night snack. Perhaps our quest for adventure takes humanity too far into the natural habitat of the animal denizens of the planet.

A compelling read as Becker usually demonstrates how calamities could have been avoided. Reading these stories will certainly make the reader think twice before the next thrill seeking adventure.

The Warmth of Other Suns by Isabel Wilkerson - A Review

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If you've ever done genealogy, you cannot help but learn in intimate detail the history of your family and often the times in which they lived. The generation born prior to the Baby Boomers is quickly disappearing and so are their stories. Thankfully Isabel Wilkerson pursued the history of three of these people to help Americans understand the epic tale of the Great Migration of southern African-Americans, who came north for a better life.

This migration of close to six million people covered almost seventy years. Within a generation of the Jim Crow laws becoming established throughout the South, black southerners turned to the North. And although it had a confusing set of rules of its own, the North dangled a carrot of hope for all those seeking a chance for improvement. The North did not want to commingle with these poorly paid new migrants, nor did they want them to take any jobs that paid well, nor live in any housing outside the areas established for them. The North did, in fact, do almost anything to prevent their success.

Wilkerson records the journeys of three migrants from the small towns of the South to the big cities of the North and West. Her research shatters many of the pre-conceived ideas about southern black migrants. She reminds us of the courage of all those who come to America, seeking a life with more opportunities for themselves and their children.

Wilkerson weaves the first hand accounts of Ida Mae Gladney in Chicago, George Starling in New York City and Robert Foster in Los Angeles with background information of the times in which they lived. She sites new data to support her conclusions and does it all with incredible understanding and compassion. You will have a difficult time putting the book down, especially in the last hundred pages, as you become more and more attached to these real-life, fallible people.

As with blues music, which is often unacknowledged by today's African-Americans, this book may be ignored by those whose parents have lived it. Do not let the size of the book discourage you. Read it to better understand your parents and grandparents. Many of us grew up being taught American history from a white male perspective. This book makes you realize that we all influence history by example, by the way we live our lives, by what we will and won't tolerate and by the choices that we make. Learning about these three individuals proves that we do indeed have the potential of living heroic, albeit unrecognized, lives.

Copyright 2012 by Linda Murdock. Linda K Murdock is the author of four books, including two cookbooks, a puzzle book and an insider's look at the State of Colorado. She has traced her genealogy back ten generations in America and has written articles for the Colorado Historical Society. She is a blues enthusiast and an avid mystery reader. Learn more or read more reviews at http://bellwetherbooks.com/

Review - Musa Dagh

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Musa Dagh, Edward Minasian, 2007, ISBN 9781583851593

This is the true story about a famous bit of early 20th century history, the Armenian Genocide. It is also about the suppression, with the help of the American government, of a movie based on a novel about that time.

In the early 1900s, Turkey was run by a government of younger activists who wanted to "cleanse" Turkey of all non-Muslims (sound vaguely familiar?). Starting in 1915, it became official policy to kill or deport all Armenians (who were Christian). The population of Armenians in Turkey dropped from approximately 2 million to its present number of less than 100,000. Several villages of Armenians, facing "relocation" to the Syrian desert, made their last stand at a place called Musa Dagh. It is in present-day southeastern Turkey, just north of the border with Syria. They held out for approximately 2 months against the Turkish Army, before being rescued by a French ship.

In 1934, a novel called "The Forty Days of Musa Dagh" by Franz Werfel was published to worldwide acclaim. The Armenian Genocide had become The Forgotten Genocide, so Armenians around the world were overjoyed. They were even more overjoyed when MGM announced, in 1935, that a major motion picture would be made based on the novel. Then the Turkish government got involved.

They exerted a lot of diplomatic pressure to stop the film from ever being made. Turkey threatened to ban all American films from Turkey. France, their long-time ally, was willing to go along. The American State Department took Turkey's side. To this day, the Turkish government strongly denies that anything like genocide ever took place. MGM was eventually convinced to shelve the film, but they refused to let anyone else make it, diligently renewing their rights to the film every few years.

In the years after World War II, a number of well-known Hollywood figures were interested in making the film. No less than 15 different scripts were written. To satisfy Turkey, it was suggested that the Turkish Ambassador in Washington read the script before production, or that the title or setting is changed, so that it has nothing to do with Turkey or Armenians. The Turkish response was that no amount of re-writing was sufficient. During the Cold War, the threatened closing of the NATO base at Incirlik, Turkey, provided a very good reason to not get Turkey upset over the film.

In the 1980s, rights to the film were acquired by an Armenian from California named John Kurkjian. He was very interested in making the film, but he had a huge time constraint. If the film was not "in the can" by a certain date, a few months away, all rights to the film would go to Anna Mahler, Werfel's widow. Kurkjian was forced to make the film in the Hollywood Hills, using unemployed Armenian actors and a second-rate director. He was a total newcomer to the world of "Hollywood," so he was unmercifully taken advantage of by everyone involved in the film. It was a rushed, low-budget film, and the final cut looked like it. Kurkjian made the deadline, but when the film was shown in front of Armenian audiences, words like "disappointing" and "tragic" were used (the film stunk). He was able to make back the money he spent on the film; the only good thing about the whole experience was that the permanent rights to the film were now held by an Armenian.

This is a fascinating and eye-opening book. It exposes a little-known piece of American film history and is highly recommended.

Paul Lappen is a freelance book reviewer whose blog, http://www.deadtreesreview.blogspot.com/, emphasizes small press and self-published books.