Description: In this gripping saga of race and retribution, Alex Heard (editorial director of Outside magazine) tells a moving and unforgettable story of the deep South that says as much about Mississippi today as it does about the mysteries of the past. In doing so, he evokes the bitter conflicts between black and white, north and south in America.
Brief description:
Alex Heard is the editorial director of Outside magazine. He has worked as an editor and writer at The New York Times Magazine, Slate, Wired, and The New Republic, and is the author of Apocalypse Pretty Soon. He lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
Review Quotes:
"The case of Willie McGee became one of the celebrated causes at the dawn of the Civil Rights movement. In this riveting personal journey of discovery and investigation, Alex Heard explores the political and social forces at play and then peels them away to reveal the fascinating human drama under it all. It's like a real-life To Kill a Mockingbird, but with even more subtleties, drama, and complexities." - Walter Isaacson, author of Einstein
"Alex Heard's The Eyes of Willie McGee is going to win a slew of prestigious awards. A stout case can now be made that the execution of McGee in 1951 launched the civil rights movement. A stunning narrative achievement based on a bevy of new documentary evidence. Essential reading for all Americans." - Douglas Brinkley, author of The Great Deluge
"In this gripping story of a world at once remote yet painfully familiar, Alex Heard has crafted a memorable narrative of a civil rights case that deserves a larger place in American memory." - Jon Meacham, author of American Lion
"A thorough revisiting of the 1945 Mississippi black-white rape case that ended in the electric chair. . . . Heard does a fine job presenting horrific documentation of the practice of lynching in the South. . . . He undertakes painstaking detective work to engagingly explore an era of deep-seated racial hatred." - Kirkus Reviews
"The case of Willie McGee is an enduring mystery, but there's no doubt he was the victim of a primitive and unfair judicial system. Alex Heard's excellent account of his life and death is tragic, sad, and very compelling." - John Grisham, author of The Innocent Man
"Alex Heard has long been one of my favorite writers because of his meticulous eye for the weird, his fascination with America's roads less traveled, and his one-of-a-kind deadpan wit. In his new book, he reveals a gift I didn't know he had for historical narrative. The Eyes of Willie McGee recreates a once-notorious, until-now-forgotten race, class, crime and politics drama that helped set the stage for both the McCarthy Era and the Civil Rights Movement. With an unlikely cast that includes Norman Mailer, Albert Einstein and Bella Abzug, Heard's story is To Kill a Mockingbird meets "Radical Chic" in 1940s Mississippi. It's a gripping, disturbing treat." - Jacob Weisberg, author of The Bush Tragedy
"Heard does a deft job of untangling the Magnolia States snarled web of race, sex and politics in the tragic tale of Willie McGee. . . . This forgotten story, while it mirrors To Kill a Mockingbird, has all the complexity of Faulkner. . . . Heard is dogged in his pursuit of the truth." - The Los Angeles Times
"Heard succeeds impressively. . . . He places the story in the historical context of the civil rights movement. Through gritty, precise reporting, he reveals the human cost of mob violence and 'legal lynchings' in Mississippi. . . . Heard tells of those who fought against lynchings and of those who died in their midst. It is a wrenching story, but a rich narrative." - The New York Times Book Review
"Heard succeeds impressively. . . . Through gritty, precise reporting, he reveals the human cost of mob violence and 'legal lynchings' in Mississippi. . . . Heard tells of those who fought against lynchings and of those who died in their midst. . . . A rich narrative." - New York Times Book Review
"Alex Heard, a veteran journalist who grew up in Mississippi, uncovers a story that is a good deal more intriguing than Harper Lee's iconic Southern novel. . . . He surrounds the legal narrative with a rich and knowing context of historical truths. . . . Heard has produced a book that, in arresting prose, captures a significant slice of the past and a case whose verdict was all but preordained." - Michael Kazin, The Washington Post
"The Eyes of Willie McGee should be must reading for serious students of 20th century U.S. history. . . . A vivid, and essential, story of a rape trial and conviction, lynch mobs and complex personal relationships." - Chicago Tribune
"In this riveting personal journey, Alex Heard explores the political and social forces at play and then reveals the fascinating human drama underneath it all. It's like a real-life To Kill a Mockingbird, but with even more subtlety and complexity." - Walter Isaacson, author of Einstein
"The Eyes of Willie McGee re-creates a drama of race, class, crime, and politics that helped set the stage for both the McCarthy Era and the civil rights revolution. Heard's story reads like "Radical Chic" in 1940s Mississippi. It's a gripping, disturbing treat." - Jacob Weisberg, author of The Bush Tragedy
"A stout argument can now be made that the execution of Willie McGee in 1951 launched the civil rights movement. A stunning narrative achievement based on a bevy of new documentary evidence. Essential reading for all Americans." - Douglas Brinkley, author of The Great Deluge
"The story of Willie McGee was one of the most haunting cases to come out of the forcibly segregated, violence-ridden South in its time. Alex Heard uses McGee's story to shed light on an America we'd like to forget--a time when mob rule and lynching prevailed. A magisterial book." - Susan Brownmiller, author of Against Our Will
"The story of Willie McGee was one of the murkiest and most haunting cases to come out of the forcibly segregated, violence-ridden South in its time. Alex Heard does far more than straighten out facts and offer compelling new research on an ambiguous rape case. He uses McGee's story to shed light on an America we'd like to forget--a time when mob rule and lynching prevailed. This is a magisterial book, and Heard is a fine writer." - Susan Brownmiller, author of Against Our Will
"Engrossing, thoroughly researched, moving, intense, instructive and masterfully written, The Eyes of Willie McGee grabs hold of the past and makes it vivid and remarkably relevant. A brilliant powerhouse of a book." - Martin Clark, author of The Many Aspects of Mobile Home Living
"An iconic criminal case--a black man sentenced to death for raping a white woman in Mississippi in 1945--exposes the roiling tensions of the early civil rights era in this provocative study. . . . Heard finds no easy answers, but his nuanced, evocative portrait of the passions enveloping McGee's case is plenty revealing." - Publishers Weekly
"Alex Heard has peeled back the tarp on the American South ten long years before Rosa Parks boarded the bus. Willie McGee was and remains a powerful symbol of corruption and racism, but he is far more than that. He's the epicenter of an addictive mystery that draws you in even as it repels you. The story, as Heard masterfully tells it, belies our easy assumptions--about race, human nature, and the notion of justice. This is an extraordinary book." - Mary Roach, author of Stiff
"Alex Heard has peeled back the tarp on the American South ten long years before Rosa Parks boarded the bus. Willie McGee is the epicenter of an addictive mystery that draws you in even as it repels you. This is an extraordinary book." - Mary Roach, author of Stiff
"A complicated, emotionally charged story. . . . Journalist and Mississippi native Alex Heard tells in fascinating detail how this small-town trial snowballed into a landmark battle of the burgeoning civil rights movement. . . . Heard is a great storyteller and a meticulous historian." - Mother Jones