| "A
vivid American microcosm, a telling tableau of the way we are."
–The New York Times
“Kotlowitz writes with absolutely perfect
pitch … (his) masterly investigation ultimately reveals
the tragedy of racial stereotypes.”
– Christian Science Monitor
“Of all the many books written about race
in America in the past couple of years, none has been quite like
The Other Side of the River. Alex Kotlowitz’s nuanced and
absorbing account of the mysterious death of a young black man
in southwestern Michigan in 1991…important, essential even,
for the rest of us to contemplate.” – Richard
Bernstein, The New York Times
“A densely, realistic, humane portrait.”
– The New Yorker
“An accomplished, absorbing work of storytelling…Kotlowitz
has achieved something notable.” – Detroit
Free Press
“Kotlowitz is a brilliant reporter and
observer who presents fully rounded, sympathetic portraits of
individuals on both sides of the river.” – Entertainment
Weekly
“I was impressed and enthralled…This
book has suspense and style, and the delight of real substance
presented with grace….a work of great narrative power, superb
reporting, and profound empathy – in other words, a joy.”
–SCOTT TUROW
“Yet again Alex Kotlowitz extends the
boundaries of documentary exploration with brilliant success.
He has given us an engaging, knowing, probing, thoroughly accessible
moral narrative, a story of a river that is an ocean; a story
of American apartness, by virtue of race and class; a story that
ought help us understand one another better, no matter our background
and place of residence.”
– ROBERT COLES
“Alex Kotlowitz is a writer of rare compassion
and strength. He has followed up his remarkable first book with
a fascinating and painful rumination on the division between the
white and black worlds in two adjoining midwestern citeis, and
the equally separate truths that each world lives by.” –
DAVID HALBERSTAM
“There are no villians, exactly, in Kotlowitz’s
narrative, which is full of voices from both sides of the river
and which at tiems takes on a Rashomon-like quality. Nor are there
many heroes. And the victim himself…may simply have been
in the wrong place at the wrong time. The trouble is, as Kotlowitz’s
book shows, America is full of wrong places, depending on the
color of one’s skin…Kotlowitz has produced a skillfully
rendered, thoughtful study of a divided country in micocosm.”
– KIRKUS REVIEWS (starred review)
“Disturbing, compulsively involving…a
riveting portrait of a racially troubled America in the 1990s.”
– PUBLISHERS WEEKLY (starred review)
“Alex Kotlowitz deals with racial matters
in an even-handed way that should become common ground for even
the most rigidly separated…He gives us characters and a
story that help us reach across the divide and touch. His work
has the capacity to become a powerful contribution to the future
of the country.”
– HENRY HAMPTON |
