The Evil That White Men Do

The Evil That White Men Do is both a satiric and sympathetic take of the current turmoil about Donald Trump and race relations in the United States. It is a novel in the tradition of Kingsley Amis, Evelyn Waugh, J. P. Dunleavy and my own Murder in the Museum of Man, which the New Yorker called "An adroit, hilarious send-up." Trump's election devastates Claire Fitzmorgan, who teaches English literature at Byles, a small college in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Not only has political correctness run amok at Byles, but Claire, ironically enough, has been passed over for tenure in favor of a man. This puts her at odds with the department head, the aging, acerbic, old-school Giles Newcombe. Coming in the aftermath of these professional set-backs, Hillary Clinton's defeat all but unhinges Claire. She not only spent time, money, and passion on the campaign, but she had staked much of her identity as a woman on the election. The triumph of Donald Trump deepens her angst. For Claire, the man personifies all that is wrong about white male America. Her chagrin and disappointment give way to a depression that leads to a bad case of what some choose to call Trump derangement disorder. She can scarcely abide hearing that name much less seeing that face on every available screen. In her misery, she associates Trump with Fergal O'Fallon, her alcoholic, outspoken, and contrarian father-in-law. Worse, she conflates Fergal with her techie husband Donal and their precocious, six-year-old son Finn. They come to form a triptych of white maleness that twists her heart and mind. Increasingly angry, confused, and vulnerable, she leaves Donal and Finn to go with her best friend, the wealthy Mims Pappas, to Eagle Nest Farm, a rural retreat in the northern Berkshires of Massachusetts. There, for a hefty sum and in decidedly primitive conditions, they join fifty or so like-minded souls, many of them women, seeking to to be cured of whiteness. In the temper of the times, whiteness, specifically white male whiteness, is viewed by many as a rapidly emerging social pathology. At Eagle Nest Farm, as part of the cure, the members experience life as it was lived before the advent of the white man. There they also imbibe the wisdom of the charismatic Nogumi, a trans-racial, trans-cultural, trans-gender holy woman. To some it would appear as an elaborate scam, one not without its adventures, its dangers, and its inadvertent dark humor. Claire, a devotee of Virginia Woolf, keeps a journal in which she comments on Nogumi's frequent homilies to the assembled members and records her own mixed feelings. So much of what Nogumi says about white male whiteness and the ills of the modern world initially make sense to her. Then doubts creep in. At the same time her husband Donal begs and threatens in letters (no phones are allowed) in an attempt to have her return home. His efforts include a visit to the farm with Finn, a visit that does not go well.She is conflicted and decides after several weeks that she wants to return to her old life, despite the ever looming Trump. But in the meanwhile, the rich and pampered Mims, to whom Claire is devoted, has joined the Paleo Realm. This is an experiment in Stone Age living located in the nearby woods. Here, in conditions so primordial that even language is forbidden, its denizens live off the land in a haphazard sort of way. Staffed by three young, studly men, the Paleo Realm is in reality little more than a male brothel serving the needs of those members in need of servicing. Once there, Mims, hooks up with one of the young men and doesn't want to leave. She has found her real self in being, as she puts it, a fake among fakes. Claire hesitates, torn between loyalty to her friend and wanting to return to her real world. At which point things fall apart as in a nightmare within a nightmare.

"[W]e can't come off as a bunch of angry white men.” Robert Bennett, chairman of the Ohio Republican Party One of the enduring legacies of the 2012 Presidential campaign was the demise of the white American male voter as a dominant force in the political landscape. On election night, after Obama was announced the winner, a distressed Bill O'Reilly lamented that he didn't live in “a traditional America anymore.” He was joined by others who bellowed their grief on the talk radio airwaves, the traditional redoubt of angry white men. Why were they so angry? Sociologist Michael Kimmel, one of the leading writers on men and masculinity in the world today, has spent hundreds of hours in the company of America's angry white men – from white supremacists to men's rights activists to young students –in pursuit of an answer. Angry White Men presents a comprehensive diagnosis of their fears, anxieties, and rage. Kimmel locates this increase in anger in the seismic economic, social and political shifts that have so transformed the American landscape. Downward mobility, increased racial and gender equality, and a tenacious clinging to an anachronistic ideology of masculinity has left many men feeling betrayed and bewildered. Raised to expect unparalleled social and economic privilege, white men are suffering today from what Kimmel calls "aggrieved entitlement": a sense that those benefits that white men believed were their due have been snatched away from them. Angry White Men discusses, among others, the sons of small town America, scarred by underemployment and wage stagnation. When America's white men feel they've lived their lives the ‘right' way – worked hard and stayed out of trouble – and still do not get economic rewards, then they have to blame somebody else. Even more terrifying is the phenomenon of angry young boys. School shootings in the United States are not just the work of “misguided youth” or “troubled teens”—they're all committed by boys. These alienated young men are transformed into mass murderers by a sense that using violence against others is their right. The future of America is more inclusive and diverse. The choice for angry white men is not whether or not they can stem the tide of history: they cannot. Their choice is whether or not they will be dragged kicking and screaming into that inevitable future, or whether they will walk openly and honorably – far happier and healthier incidentally – alongside those they've spent so long trying to exclude.

The New York Times best-selling book exploring the counterproductive reactions white people have when their assumptions about race are challenged, and how these reactions maintain racial inequality. In this “vital, necessary, and beautiful book” (Michael Eric Dyson), antiracist educator Robin DiAngelo deftly illuminates the phenomenon of white fragility and “allows us to understand racism as a practice not restricted to ‘bad people’ (Claudia Rankine). Referring to the defensive moves that white people make when challenged racially, white fragility is characterized by emotions such as anger, fear, and guilt, and by behaviors including argumentation and silence. These behaviors, in turn, function to reinstate white racial equilibrium and prevent any meaningful cross-racial dialogue. In this in-depth exploration, DiAngelo examines how white fragility develops, how it protects racial inequality, and what we can do to engage more constructively.

'Every voice raised against racism chips away at its power. We can't afford to stay silent. This book is an attempt to speak' The book that sparked a national conversation. Exploring everything from eradicated black history to the inextricable link between class and race, Why I'm No Longer Talking to White People About Race is the essential handbook for anyone who wants to understand race relations in Britain today. THE NO.1 SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER WINNER OF THE BRITISH BOOK AWARDS NON-FICTION NARRATIVE BOOK OF THE YEAR 2018 FOYLES NON-FICTION BOOK OF THE YEAR BLACKWELL'S NON-FICTION BOOK OF THE YEAR WINNER OF THE JHALAK PRIZE LONGLISTED FOR THE BAILLIE GIFFORD PRIZE FOR NON-FICTION LONGLISTED FOR THE ORWELL PRIZE SHORTLISTED FOR A BOOKS ARE MY BAG READERS AWARD

From the author of the smash hit #1 New York Times bestseller So You Want to Talk About Race, an "illuminating" (New York Times Book Review) history of white male identity in America What happens to a country that tells generations of white men that they deserve power? What happens when their identity is defined by status over women and people of color? Through the last 150 years of American history, Ijeoma Oluo exposes the devastating consequences of white male supremacy. She then envisions a new white male identity, one free from racism and sexism. Now with a new preface addressing the harrowing 2021 Capitol attack, Mediocre confronts our founding myths, in hopes that we will write better stories for future generations.

What do men-white straight men in particular-want? In a series of witty and provocative investigations of American popular culture, Fred Pfeil exposes the contradictions in the construction of white heterosexual masculinity over the last fifteen years. White Guys probes such topics as the rock'n'roll bodies of Bruce Springsteen, Axl Rose, and the late Kurt Cobain; the "male rampage" films Die Hard and Lethal Weapon and the films of "sensitive transformation" that followed in their wake; and the curious yet symptomatic activities of the men's movement whose "rituals" Pfeil has investigated firsthand.

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • NATIONAL BOOK AWARD WINNER • NAMED ONE OF TIME’S TEN BEST NONFICTION BOOKS OF THE DECADE • PULITZER PRIZE FINALIST • NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD FINALIST • ONE OF OPRAH’S “BOOKS THAT HELP ME THROUGH” • NOW AN HBO ORIGINAL SPECIAL EVENT Hailed by Toni Morrison as “required reading,” a bold and personal literary exploration of America’s racial history by “the most important essayist in a generation and a writer who changed the national political conversation about race” (Rolling Stone) NAMED ONE OF THE MOST INFLUENTIAL BOOKS OF THE DECADE BY CNN • NAMED ONE OF PASTE’S BEST MEMOIRS OF THE DECADE • NAMED ONE OF THE TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The New York Times Book Review • O: The Oprah Magazine • The Washington Post • People • Entertainment Weekly • Vogue • Los Angeles Times • San Francisco Chronicle • Chicago Tribune • New York • Newsday • Library Journal • Publishers Weekly In a profound work that pivots from the biggest questions about American history and ideals to the most intimate concerns of a father for his son, Ta-Nehisi Coates offers a powerful new framework for understanding our nation’s history and current crisis. Americans have built an empire on the idea of “race,” a falsehood that damages us all but falls most heavily on the bodies of black women and men—bodies exploited through slavery and segregation, and, today, threatened, locked up, and murdered out of all proportion. What is it like to inhabit a black body and find a way to live within it? And how can we all honestly reckon with this fraught history and free ourselves from its burden? Between the World and Me is Ta-Nehisi Coates’s attempt to answer these questions in a letter to his adolescent son. Coates shares with his son—and readers—the story of his awakening to the truth about his place in the world through a series of revelatory experiences, from Howard University to Civil War battlefields, from the South Side of Chicago to Paris, from his childhood home to the living rooms of mothers whose children’s lives were taken as American plunder. Beautifully woven from personal narrative, reimagined history, and fresh, emotionally charged reportage, Between the World and Me clearly illuminates the past, bracingly confronts our present, and offers a transcendent vision for a way forward.

One of the New York Times Book Review's Top Ten Best Crime Novels of 2020 "[McMahon] tells his story with flair."--New York Times Book Review The author of The Good Detective delivers a gripping and atmospheric new novel in which a cop takes on a harrowing case and confronts old personal demons. What if the one good thing you did in your life doomed you to die? A hard-nosed real estate baron is dead, and detectives P.T. Marsh and Remy Morgan learn there's a long list of suspects. Mason Falls, Georgia, may be a small town, but Ennis Fultz had filled it with professional rivals, angry neighbors, and a wronged ex-wife. And when Marsh realizes that this potential murder might be the least of his troubles, he begins to see what happens when ordinary people become capable of evil. As Marsh and Morgan dig into the case, it becomes clear that Fultz's death was not an isolated case of revenge. It may be part of a dark web of crimes connected to an accident that up-ended Marsh's life a couple years earlier--and that now threatens the life of a young child. Marsh veers dangerously off track as his search for clues becomes personal..and brings him to a place where a man's good deeds turn out to be more dangerous than his worst crimes.