by Fox Butterfield
Vintage
1/8/2008, paperback
SKU: 9780307280336
From the National Book Award and Pulitzer Prize-winning author comes the poignant story of how the tradition of white Southern violence and racism has long affected and still haunts one black family. Butterfield follows the Bosket family of Edgefield County, South Carolina, from the days of slavery to the present.
A timely reissue of Fox Butterfield's masterpiece, All God's Children, a searing examination of the caustic cumulative effect of racism and violence over 5 generations of black Americans.
Willie Bosket is a brilliant, violent man who began his criminal career at age five; his slaying of two subway riders at fifteen led to the passage of the first law in the nation allowing teenagers to be tried as adults. Butterfield traces the Bosket family back to their days as South Carolina slaves and documents how Willie is the culmination of generations of neglect, cruelty, discrimination and brutality directed at black Americans. From the terrifying scourge of the Ku Klux Klan during Reconstruction to the brutal streets of 1970s New York, this is an unforgettable examination of the painful roots of violence and racism in America.
About the Author:
Fox Butterfield is the author of China: Alive in the Bitter Sea, which won the National Book Award. He was a member of the New York Times reporting team that won the Pulitzer Prize for its publication of the Pentagon Papers, and has served as a correspondent for the newspaper in Boston, Washington, DC, New York, South Vietnam, Japan, Hong Kong, and China--where he opened the Beijing bureau in 1979. He is currently a national correspondent for the NY Times, writing about crime and violence. He lives near Boston with his family.