Black Angels

New York City, 1929. A sanatorium, a deadly disease, and a dire nursing shortage. In the pre-antibiotic days when tuber­culosis stirred people’s darkest fears, killing one in seven, white nurses at Sea View, New York’s largest municipal hospital, began quitting en masse. Desperate to avert a public health crisis, city officials summoned Black southern nurses, luring them with promises of good pay, a career, and an escape from the stric­tures of Jim Crow. But after arriving, they found themselves on an isolated hilltop in the remote borough of Staten Island, yet again confronting racism and consigned to a woefully understaffed sanatorium, dubbed “the pest house,” where it was said that “no one left alive.” Spanning the Great Depression and moving through World War II and beyond, this remarkable true story follows the intrepid young women known by their patients as the “Black Angels.” For twenty years, they risked their lives work­ing under appalling conditions while caring for New York’s poorest residents, who languished in wards, waiting to die, or became guinea pigs for experimental surgeries and often deadly drugs. But despite their major role in desegregating the New York City hospital system—and their vital work in helping to find the cure for tuberculo­sis at Sea View—these nurses were completely erased from history. The Black Angels recovers the voices of these extraordinary women and puts them at the center of this riveting story, celebrating their legacy and spirit of survival.

The compelling story of three young orphans who must survive on their own during the Civil War. It?s near the end of the war, and rumors of emancipation are swirling. Eleven-year-old Luke decides to run away to freedom and join the Union Army. But he doesn?t find the Yankee troops he was hoping for. Instead, he finds nine-year-old Daylily, lost in the woods after suffering an unspeakable tragedy. Her master set her free, but freedom so far has her scared and alone. Also lost in the woods is seven-year-old Caswell, the son of a plantation owner. He was only trying to find his Mamadear after the Yankees burned their house with all their fine things. He wanted to be brave. But alone in the woods with two slave children, he quickly loses all his courage, and comes to greatly depend upon his new friends. In the chaos and violence that follows, the three unrelated children discover a bond in each other stronger than family. A touching, beautifully written narrative, Black Angels is a riveting, special read.

Assisting a friend in a search for a kidnapped woman, detective Charlie Parker links the abduction to a church of bones in Eastern Europe, a 1944 slaughter at a French monastery, and the myth of an object known as the Black Angel.

Logic tells us that if there are Bright Angels, there must also be Black Angels. Prior to meeting Zetta, Nathan believed in neither. Before encountering Zetta, Nathan felt that religion was something one did, rather than something one lived. Nathans religious views changed radically when he and Zetta traveled to Mount Zion Plantation, deep in the black water swamps of southern Louisiana. Mount Zion Plantation was the ancestral home of three of the most beautiful Black Angels that the Dark Side ever created. The Greek Revival home at Mount Zion rivaled the most exquisite plantation homes of the Old South. Zetta, who was also stunningly beautiful, represented the Bright Side. Titanic forces were afoot, deep in the ancient quagmire where evil ruled and sane men feared to tread. Ray Johnson again takes his readers on a perilous journey to the Dark Side. Beautiful angels, each serving different Gods, do battle for Nathans immortal soul. As with his previous novels, Bright Angels-Black Angels, holds the reader spellbound until the final page, gripping their attention like a riled swamp gator that refuses to let go.

"Len Roberts is a poet of unwavering truthfulness and unwavering mercy," commented Sharon Olds about Black Wings, a 1988 National Poetry Series selection. Counting the Black Angels, Roberts's eighth book of poetry, is a piercingly painful and redemptive work in which he probes memories of a violent family history and his covenants with God and the "Black Angels." "Roberts's new work is among the most intelligent, moving, and expressive poetry now being written." -- Hayden Carruth

In Nazi Germany the SS was an instrument of terror and repression. This powerful spearhead was known as the Waffen-SS. A hand-picked elite of magnificent fighting men whose courage was outstanding, but also a force of cruel fanatics capable of hideous atrocities against all accepted rules of warfare. This detailed history looks at both faces of the SS formations, giving a vivid picture of the diabolical architects of the world's most terrible private army.

A biography of the Armenian painter that “adds immeasurable to the interest of [his] art . . . Carefully researched, well written, [and] enlightening” (The New York Review of Books). In this first full-scale biography, Nouritza Matossian charts the mysterious and tragic life of Arshile Gorky, one of the most influential painters of the twentieth century. Born Manoug Adoian in Armenia, he survived the Turkish genocide of 1915 before coming to America, where he posed as a cousin of the famous Russian author Maxim Gorky. One of the first abstract expressionists, Gorky became a major figure of the New York School, which included de Kooning, Rothko, Pollock, and others. But after a devastating series of illnesses, injuries, and personal setbacks, he committed suicide at the age of forty-six. In Black Angel, arts journalist Matossian analyzes Gorky’s personal letters, as well as other new source material. She writes with authority, insight, and compassion about the powerful influence Gorky’s life and Armenian heritage had upon his painting.