Reporting

      Geraldine Brooks, Memorial Days,  a memoir reported on here previously, was married to Tony Horwitz. In her memoir she tells of Horwitz death just as he was to complete a book tour for Spying on the South: An Odyssey Across the American divide.  It became a New York Times bestseller.

    In 1850 Fredrick Law Olmsted, then a reporter later the landscape architect of Central Park, etc., traveled the south. His intention was to understand the southern perspective, not least attitudes toward slavery. Initially he was willing to accept slavery where it existed but against its expansion. The intransigence of slave holders and the brutality he witnessed in the South made him an abolitionist. As a journalist he recorded his travels and experiences.

    Horowitz attempted to retrace Olmsted's travels. As he does this he records his conversations with the people he meets. His purpose is twofold. To see the places Olmsted visited and described so Horwitz can see what has happened to them. Horwitz also wants to understand contemporary Southerners attitudes and opinions. He had an exceptional knack for infiltrating the habitats of those people and engaging them in conversation.

   Horwitz untimely death at 60 is very sad. Naturally a devastating loss to his family and friends. It's sad he didn't get see the book's  success. Also sad is the loss of such a creative talent.

Takk for alt.

Al