Bombingham by Anthony Grooms (English) Paperback Book

Description: Bombingham by Anthony Grooms From the war-torn rice fields of Vietnam to the riot-filled streets of Birmingham, Alabama, "Bombingham" is the affecting story of a middle-class black family driven by its personal chaos. FORMAT Paperback LANGUAGE English CONDITION Brand New Publisher Description In his barracks, Walter Burke is trying to write a letter to the parents of a fallen soldier, an Alabama man who died in a muddy rice paddy. But all he can think of is his childhood friend Lamar, the friend with whom he first experienced the fury of violence, on the streets of Birmingham, at the height of the Civil Rights Movement. The juxtaposition is so powerful—between war-torn Vietnam and terror-filled "Bombingham"—that he is drawn back to the summer that would see his transition from childish wonder at the world to his certain knowledge of his place in it.Walter and Lamar were always aware of the terms of segregation—the horrendous rules and stifling reality. Their paper route never took them to the white areas of town. But that year, everything exploded. And so did Walters family. As the great movement swelled around them, the Burkes faced tremendous obstacles of their own. From a tortured past lingered questions of faith, and a terrible family crisis found its climax as the city did the same. In the streets of Birmingham, ordinary citizens risked their lives to change America. And for Walter, the war was just beginning. Author Biography Anthony Grooms was educated at the College of William and Mary and at George Mason University. He is the author of Ice Poems and Trouble No More: Stories and is the winner of the 1996 Lillian Smith Award. As a writer, teacher, and arts administrator, he has won awards from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Bread Loaf Writers Conference, and the City of Atlanta Bureau of Cultural Affairs. He is currently the professor of creative writing at Kennesaw State University in Georgia, and lives in Atlanta with his wife, Pamela B. Jackson. Review "Grooms reimagines one of the most shattering episodes in American history, the infamous 1963 bombing of the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church."—Essence"Bombingham is a considerable achievement . . . [that marks] the emergence of a brave and promising talent."—The Washington Post"Too many of our younger generation know nothing about the struggle, the sacrifices, the dying of our people during those demonstrations of the fifties and the sixties. And older people too should be reminded, so that theyll never forget. . . . [Bombingham] is about a subject and a time we should never forget."—ERNEST GAINES Author of A Lesson Before Dying Review Quote "Grooms reimagines one of the most shattering episodes in American history, the infamous 1963 bombing of the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church." -Essence "Bombinghamis a considerable achievement . . . [that marks] the emergence of a brave and promising talent." -The Washington Post "Too many of our younger generation know nothing about the struggle, the sacrifices, the dying of our people during those demonstrations of the fifties and the sixties. And older people too should be reminded, so that theyll never forget. . . . [Bombingham] is about a subject and a time we should never forget." -ERNEST GAINES Author ofA Lesson Before Dying Excerpt from Book IN FRONT OF US, about a quarter mile, was Thoybu, a complex of straw houses among the palms. Like so many of the villages we had run through, it looked tranquil at a distance, with felicific fronds waving above the thatch roofs. The silence, though, ought to have been a warning, but my head throbbed, a lump the size of a potato pressed against my anus, and I wanted to sleep more than anything. I didnt like being in the open, and the two platoons were strung out across the paddies. The sunlight hurt my eyes and made me dizzy, so I looked down and followed Haywood. He was over six foot and two hundred pounds. His deep tracks filled with brown water. Vester walked beside me, elbow to elbow. His face was pearled with sweat. "Goddamn hot," he said. I didnt say anything. Maybe I gave him a half smile. "Okay, cool. Be that way if you want. Your Bama ass gone get plenty hot before this day is over." "Its all a matter of mind over matter," I said. "You full of shit." "I dont mind and you dont matter." "You tell im, Tibbs." Bright Eyes walked on my left. My name was Walter Burke, but I let them call me "Mr. Tibbs" after a character Sidney Poitier played in the movies. "You dont matter, neither," Vester said. "Thats why your black ass is here. And that rabbit over there?" He referred to Bright Eyes. "I wouldnt even bother scraping his pale-face ass off the sole of my shoe." "Im just on a Sunday stroll," Bright Eyes said. "Just like going to church on revival Sunday. Picnic on the grounds. Ham and chicken. Macaroni and cheese--" "What the hell is he talking about?" "Cakes and pies. Grandma makes this caramel cake and Aunt Claudia, she makes a squash pie. Ever heard of that?" "Shut the fuck up, you Bugs Bunny-looking motherfucker. What the fuck you talking about, anyway? You see any goddamn squash pie out here?" RTOs radio crackled and the squad leader talked into it. They were just on the other side of Bright Eyes. I looked at Bright Eyes. He smiled and pushed at his helmet. "Its A-okay, a cruise," he reported. "There no such thing as a cruise," I said. "Youve just got to put an edge on everything." "Hes just a edgy brother," Vester said. "Hard-edged," Bright Eyes said. "Wouldnt you say, Tibbs? I mean, theres a difference. Edgy is jumpy like. But hard-edged is cool like." "Cold-edged. Like a mama-sans tit," Vester said. I didnt say anything. Mr. Tibbs would have found the conversation contemptible. "What mama-sans tit have you been sucking?" "The same damn one as you." "Then you must have been sucking it the wrong way. Remind me to show you some technique. Tibbs got technique. Tibbs, you need to give your brother man a lesson in tit sucking." "Keep cool, Harvey." I quoted a line from the movie, mimicking Mr. Tibbss exacting elocution. Haywood let us catch up to him. He squeezed in between Vester and me. "I got a uptight feeling about this one," he whispered. "Theres got to be a Betty out here somewhere. I just feel it." The lump in my stomach turned over. Haywood was usually right about these things. I slowed down and it seemed that everyone did, as if the line had run up against an unseen tension. I squinted and surveyed the flood plain, puzzled with paddies. The river was behind and to the left of us. Haywood pointed to a figure running away. "Who want this one?" he asked. "Looks like a papa-san," Bright Eyes said. "I aint for capping papasans." "Hes legal," Haywood said. "Legal, my ass." Bright Eyes looked at me for support. "Fugazi! Thats fucked up." I lifted my rifle and sighted along the barrel. The man was dressed in the loose-fitting outfit we called black pajamas. We had been told it was okay to shoot anyone in black pajamas who ran because he was VC, running to give warning. The figure made slow progress across the paddies, fighting the suction of the mud with each leap. It appeared to be an old man, though from the distance it could easily have been an old woman with her hair up. I followed the figure with the point of the barrel. "You got im, Waltie?" Haywood asked. There were perhaps thirty GIs closer to the figure than us. "I got im." My heart fluttered and I squeezed off a round. Sporadic popping came from up and down the line, but I was first. The figure tripped and went down. "What that make? Four or five for you?" asked Haywood. "Whos counting?" "You are counting. But I wouldnt count that one," Bright Eyes said. "I wouldnt count that one if I were you, Tibbs." "You are not me," I said. "Lord a mighty, dont get so testy about it. Im not saying you did something wrong. Im just saying I wouldnt count that one." "Count what you want to count," Haywood said. "It doesnt change anything. The way it is, is the way it is." "But the brother got style," Vester said. "He so cool, he scare me. A hundred degrees out here and he aint even sweating. Just pick em off like--pow!" Haywood looked at me and snorted. He and I knew better. He was my age, but seemed older. He already had his short-timers stick. He knew how important it was to do what you had to do to get by. "But I wouldnt have capped a papa-san," Bright Eyes said. "Not an old man." "It wasnt an old man." "What was it then? Looked like papa-san to me." "It wasnt your papa," I said and moved ahead. "Least you could have let somebody down the line do it. Maybe they could have seen it better." "Whose conscience are you? You out of everybody," Haywood said to Bright Eyes. "You aint got no room to talk with that ring of baby fingers hanging around your neck." "Aint no baby fingers on my chain." Bright Eyes pulled a chain out of his shirt. It had an ear on it from a kill he had made earlier in the week. The ear was beginning to mold. "Goddamn," said Vester. "Throw that goddamn shit away. Walking around like a goddamn cannibal with that goddamn thing on your neck. It stinks." "Its my power." "Fuck your power. It stinks. This aint Africa or something; we aint no goddamn cannibals. It stinks." "Yall ease up," Haywood said, authoritatively. "Keep alert. I think were in for some action." "Uh-uh," Bright Eyes disagreed. "CO said, Contact unlikely. " Just then a snake shimmied across my path. I froze and held my breath. It was one of the slender, green, quick kind we often encountered in the bamboo thickets. A kind of cobra. It skimmed across a puddle and disappeared into the spring green shoots. Thats an omen, I thought, but I did not say it. I looked into the blue sky, and for a moment felt its weight. "Well get through. Well get through, all right," I heard Haywood saying. He had seen the snake, too. "Oh, Lord," I heard Bright Eyes say. "Goddamn, here we go," Vester said. Then I heard popping coming from out of the trees in the village. The men in formation closest to the village fell into the mud, and like a row of dominoes the line went down. I threw myself into the mud and tried to spot the snipers through the sight of my rifle. The fire got heavy. GIs groaned and cried out. The radio crackled and word came down the line to dig in, but it was all I could do to lie still and hope to stay clear of the rounds patting the mud all around me. The fire slackened after ten minutes, and we were ordered to move forward. By now I was not thinking about my head or my stomach. My senses were outside of me like the feelers of an insect, aware of every movement, every sound, and every smell. We all were insects, ground beetles testing the mud with each step lest we set off a mine. We gained a couple of hundred feet before we fell back in heavy fire. Haywood spotted an area in the trees just in front of the village. "Bust caps right along in there," he directed, and the four of us burned up a lot of ammunition concentrating on the one clump of trees. After ten or fifteen minutes, the fronds were dangling from the trees and our fire received no answer from that clump. I couldnt see our line anymore because the men were low, digging shallow holes in the mud into which to slap their bodies. Smoke wafted across the fields. After a while, a Chinook came across, headed toward a Medevac flare, but the chopper drew so much fire, it couldnt land. "We need some air. Why dont they send us some air?" Vester asked. "It wont be long," Haywood assured him. "Lieutenants called for it by now. Just lay flat and well get through this." "We need some air," Vester yelled across to the squad leader. "Its on the way," the squad leader said. He was from Boston, and he sounded like it. "When? Next Christmas?" Bright Eyes yelled. "Be easy. Be easy," Haywood said. His voice was resonan Details ISBN0345452933 Author Anthony Grooms Short Title BOMBINGHAM Pages 320 Language English ISBN-10 0345452933 ISBN-13 9780345452931 Media Book Format Paperback DEWEY FIC Year 2002 Audience Age 14-18 Residence Atlanta, GA, US DOI 10.1604/9780345452931 Country of Publication United States AU Release Date 2002-10-01 NZ Release Date 2002-10-01 US Release Date 2002-10-01 UK Release Date 2002-10-01 Place of Publication New York Publisher Random House USA Inc Publication Date 2002-10-01 Imprint One World Books Audience General We've got this At The Nile, if you're looking for it, we've got it. With fast shipping, low prices, friendly service and well over a million items - you're bound to find what you want, at a price you'll love! TheNile_Item_ID:7159410;

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