I had never heard of John Safran, and was unaware of his journalistic persona as a “shock-jock”, if that is indeed what he is. He is obviously not a writer by profession, as this is more a stream of consciousness than anything else. It was certainly different than books I normally read, and I found it difficult to really care about any of the people he portrayed. I was very curious to see if he would write about Mississippi with the moral superiority that I suspected he harbored, and he often did, but it was more nuanced than I expected. He didn’t neglect the contradictions. The account of the White Citizen’s Council picnic which attracted both black and white politicians was fascinating, and sort of illustrated the loss of power and threat by those type organizations in the south today. Safran came to Mississippi to investigate the death of Richard Barrett, a self-proclaimed white supremacist who had been the object of one of his “pranks” in the past, expecting a lot of juicy racial tension since the suspected killer was black. What he found was a mixture of race, sex, and thuggish behavior, and he never quite sorted out what was what. He wanted Vincent McGee to have been wrongly accused, or inadequately defended, or to be a martyr to race relations, and that wasn’t what he discovered. Barrett is much more complex than he expected, and McGee much less. Safran has trouble reconciling his preconceptions with the reality. He intended to write a true crime book, but he wrote a diary instead, and for all his time, trouble, and expense, he never got closure. The book is interesting but not engrossing, but if you are familiar with Safran and like his work you will probably enjoy it. I'm a big fan of John Safran and his first book did not disappoint. He manages to intertwine humour into stories that are so dark and depressing, such as this case of a troubled young black man who is jail for murder after stabbing a white supremacist 30 times. John Safran, being John Safran, is exploring the race angle, but the stories that emerge are not what he predicted and are actually quite bizarre. The killer does not even enter the story until almost half way through, yet there are so many other intriguing characters that it is thrilling the whole way through. The problem with true crime, though, is that you cannot necessarily expect a happy ending, or in fact any outcome whatsoever. I can only hope that things start to improve for Vincent McGee.
What do You think about Murder In Mississippi (2013)?
Very good without being great.That's not a bad thing.
—love
Interesting enough but a bit disjointed.
—Jennifer
