Thread by @ClaireBerlinski

Okay, back to Cory, since there was no demand for anyone else. (There was no demand for Cory, either, but I figure I should finish what I started.) We're now on Chapter Five.

I'm fueling myself with self-righteousness. How many other reviewers actually read *every word* of the book? I am such an earnest, serious book reviewer. (I also read every word of the Mueller Report, by the way.)

So I'll make it through this whole book today. With prayer and fasting. Which is where we left off, remember? Cory prayed and fasted until Newark was exactly the same.

Chapter Five is called "My Father's Son." It begins in the Perry Funeral Home. We're mourning Hassan Washington. "His choices led him to that box, but so did ours."

He had liked Hassan, who reminded him of his father. "Both were charismatic, both were born leaders, both lived in segregated black neighborhoods--one segregated de jure, the other de facto."

But a community, he writes, had been there for his father and hadn't let him fail. "We let Hassan fail."

On page 87, he uses the phrase, "speaks your truth," followed by "my father's truth."

I am vexed.

His father's wisdom: "Son, there are two ways to go through life, as a thermometer or a thermostat. Don't be a thermometer, just reflecting what's around you ... be a thermostat and set the temperature."

This idea of having a personal truth--one to which possessive pronouns may be applied--is an absurd fad. It doesn't belong in an adult book. Why didn't the copy editor or the ghost writer strike it out?

I'm losing the plot.

Hassan Washington's father was a murderer. "Hassan would never remember a time when his father was not behind bars."

Hassan's mother spiraled down when his father was locked up, becoming "consumed by the fire of narcotics."

This is a short, depressing chapter. Newark sounds hellish. I agree that no such city should exist and that it reflects poorly on us all that it does.

Halfway through. I'm going for a walk.