Confederacy of Silence: A True Tale of the New Old South

This book is an extraordinary mix of suspense, humor, history, and sociology, seasoned with football, racism, Court TV, and violence. I found it to be an intensely personal account of the author's experience in Mississippi. The characters are rich and the story is shocking and fascinating. The author is a nice Jewish boy from New York who takes his first job out of the Ivy League as a sports reporter on a small Mississippi newspaper. From his arrival on a Greyhound bus he is clearly naïve to the Mississippi of the 1980's, but grows to know the people and ideas very well indeed. I loved this book and recommend it strongly

Okay, I don't live in Mississippi. But I live in Alabama, and I think that qualifies me to say that in 'Confederacy of Silence,' Richard Rubin -- who quotes someone calling him 'a Yankee Jew' as soon as the book gets going -- has drawn one of the most well-rounded and thoughtful portraits of this never-boring place we call The South. Most Northerners would come down here with their minds made up, ready to stereotype, ready to poke fun and use a whole bunch of dialect (when Rubin uses it, which isn't much, it's really effective and makes a character come to life). Not Rubin. He doesn't know what he's going to find, and while he has some preconceived ideas, he discards them along the way and shows himself doing it. He really *lives* in Mississippi--he gets into his community, he finds things he thinks are fascinating, and he shares them with all of us in a way that makes us think they're interesting too. So that's one part of the book. Another part of the book is about Handy Campbell, a high-school football star whose amazing senior season Rubin covers, and his trial for murder six or so years later. I won't give away the ending, but what makes it so compelling is not just whether Handy is guilty but how Rubin feels about Handy and how the trial affects that. I read a review somewhere that compared this to Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil. And it's kind of true, because Confederacy of Silence shows us an entire community and how the way various people live in the community can lead to a murder and how that affects the town. Anyone who liked 'Midnight' will like this. It's not just a memoir, it's not just reporting, it's not even just true crime. It's a really well-rounded view of a whole place, the Mississippi Delta, and its history and its culture and what they lead to. It's great reading.

Having spent my formative years in Mississippi, I approached Mr. Rubin's book with some trepidation. I do love Mississippi-warts and all. I am all too familiar with books written about the South that berate the people based upon their history and the stereotypical depiction of their actions. Refreshingly, Mr. Rubin does not fall into this trap. Yes, there are sections of the book that are difficult to read due to the hateful, racist language referenced. Thankfully, Confederacy of Silence doesn't stop there. The beauty of the place and the generosity and graciousness of the people are crucial aspects of the Mississippi experience that the author astutely depicts for the reader. I found the section of the book devoted to the writer's experience in the Delta truly fascinating. I found the second half of the book to be a genuine `page turner.' While I thoroughly enjoyed reading the book, I wanted to finish it quickly to find out what happened to Handy Campbell. I did approach the ending with some hesitancy-would Campbell be found guilty even though he was innocent or was he actually guilty? I must admit that the final outcome of the trial was something I never even considered. I highly recommend this book. As a native of Mississippi, I strongly urge those unfamiliar with the state to experience second-hand the good in the people that Mr. Rubin encounters-it is easy to see the bad. The author uses a clear voice from which the reader can draw his or her own opinion.

This is not the kind of book I usually pick up. I only did so based on the strong recommendation from a friend. How glad I am I did. Right from the Prologue (not even as far as Chapter One!) I was riveted, and even if I could only read one chapter a night, I was hooked until I finished it. Rubin is a tremendously skillful writer. I loved his wry take on his situations he found himself in. I admired his bald honesty about his encounters and himself, even when they were clearly painful revalations. I could picture myself in his shoes. I was shocked with him, bemused with him, disgusted with him. And I was totally blown away at the conclusion -- I never saw it coming. I cannot believe this is his first novel -- and I eagerly await his next masterpiece.

Richard Rubin says he grew up in Greenwood, Mississippi. It is hyperbole; he spent one good year there in 1988 and 1989, but he was a college graduate at the time. He was, as a Greenwood friend reminds him throughout _Confederacy of Silence: A True Tale of the New Old South_ (Atria Books), an "Ivy League Yankee Jew," who came in from New York and left again for New York. His growing up during that year could have consisted only of disillusion and disgust, and while those were not absent, for Greenwood and its citizens he developed a compassion, a clear understanding, and even love. The year incidentally was one of the steps that turned him into a very fine writer, as this, his first book, shows. With the job market for a non-typist, liberal arts degree graduate nil in New York, he was looking for work, and responded to an ad seeking a sports reporter for the Greenwood paper. Throughout the book, he shows how Greenwood citizens were almost universally interested, kind, and accepting. The rare instances when he was not welcomed were generally because he was a reporter, not because of his origins. Of course he ran into racists, such as the one who refused the paper because it had too many pictures of blacks in it (although of course the word "black" was not used). Rubin formulated the plan that while in Greenwood, he would maintain a courteous and genial appearance, and keep his outrage to himself. While this is probably mere reciprocation of what the Greenwood citizens did toward him, it worked, in a way: "...while it would indeed protect my job, it would do something quite different to my conscience." Much of the delightful memoir within this book has to do with a foreigner adjusting to a strange land, and would do as a guidebook. He learns what tea, fire ants, and chewing tobacco are, and that sports means football. He was able to write about the Greenwood football team which had a glorious year, quarterbacked by a black, Handy Campbell, who, among other achievements, capped his season with a magnificent seventy yard pass against arch-rival Tupelo. Campbell had all the makings for a fine college quarterback and a career as a professional, but it did not happen. In fact, he wound up on trial for murder. When Rubin, back in New York, heard about the charges, he returned to Greenwood, six years later, to find out what had happened. He makes a good case that Campbell's college career was deliberately derailed because the universities could not at that time have accepted a black quarterback, although he does not leave out the mistakes Campbell made. The outcome of the murder trial, meticulously reported here, reinforces much of what Rubin learned in his time in Greenwood, but it is a surprising outcome nonetheless, and not to be revealed here.Rubin's digressions on his visits to Confederate graveyards, or meeting with Jews who lived in the town, or dating southern girls, are important to relaying the atmosphere of his second home town