Race and the Reality of Comfort: Kolowitz, 1

I have a practice when I travel overseas. I try to find a local book store in order to find a book with a local setting. In Paris, I went to Berkeley Books and purchased The Moveable Feast by Hemmingway and Orwell’s, Down and Out in Paris and London. The Moveable Feast took place on the same street as our hotel. I have repeated the practice in Germany, Amsterdam, and Moscow. It was harder to do with Thailand and Kenya. The engagement of a local tale is intriguing, yet when you discover a local tale in your hometown, the engagement can be daunting.

I was telling a good friend about the story, and she said, “I’m in that book.” I knew Eric – we were the same age. This story might be a little too local, and I am somewhat anxious about how the story will raise new questions – as a resident, a disciple of Jesus, but also as a pastor of a church in this community. This tale is a bit more located than Hemmingway, Orwell, or Zamyatin (Russian writer of We).

The opening chapter sets the tone for the book. There is a level of journalistic fact that keeps a thread of details running through; alongside the exceptional journalism is a healthy dose of editorial commentary, where we see into Kolowitz’s self-discoveries and personal surprise. I appreciate the style and tone of the book, for it invites me into the story as both reader and local participant.

Kolowitz moved into the area for two summers in the early 1990s. What he writes about his move into the town highlights the scope of the book as well as depicts the sociological challenge of life in the US:

“People I the two towns would often ask which side of the river I was staying on, wanting to gauge my allegiance. But the question that was most asked, “Why us? Why write about St. Joseph and Benton Harbor?” So I would tell them that, while the contrasts between St. Joe and Benton Harbor seem unusually stark, there are I believe, typical of how most of us live: physically and spiritually isolated from one another…. I’ve come to realize that most of us would like to do right, but, as was said of the South’s politicians during Jim Crow, race diminishes us. It incites us to act as we wouldn’t in other areas: clumsily, cowardly, and sometimes cruelly. We easily fall on one side or the other; we circle the wagons, watching for our own.”