The Barn
By Wright Thompson
- Release Date: 2024-09-24
- Genre: U.S. History
Description
The instant New York Times bestseller • Named a Best Book of the Year by The Washington Post, Slate, Vanity Fair, TIME, Buzzfeed, Smithsonian, BookPage, KCUR, Kirkus, and Boston Globe • Nominated for a PEN America Literary Award
“It literally changed my outlook on the world…incredible.” —Shonda Rhimes
"The Barn is serious history and skillful journalism, but with the nuance and wallop of a finely wrought novel… The Barn describes not just the poison of silence and lies, but also the dignity of courage and truth.” — The Washington Post
“The most brutal, layered, and absolutely beautiful book about Mississippi, and really how the world conspired with the best and worst parts of Mississippi, I will ever read…Reporting and reckoning can get no better, or more important, than this.” —Kiese Laymon
“An incredible history of a crime that changed America.” —John Grisham
"With integrity, and soul, Thompson unearths the terrible how and why, carrying us back and forth through time, deep in Mississippi—baring sweat, soil, and heart all the way through.” —Imani Perry
A shocking and revelatory account of the murder of Emmett Till that lays bare the long lead-up to the crime and how the truth was hidden for so long
In summer 1955, two men, Roy Bryant and J. W. Milam, were charged with the torture and murder of the fourteen-year-old Emmett Till in Money, Mississippi, and acquitted in a mockery of justice, leaving behind an ink cloud of a false confession. In The Barn, Wright Thompson reveals the true nature and location of the long night of hell that August: inside the barn of one of the killers, within the six-square-mile grid whose official name is Township 22 North, Range 4 West,
Section 2, West Half, fabled in the Delta of myth as the birthplace of the blues, and twenty-three miles from Thompson’s own family farm.
Wright Thompson has a deep, local understanding of this story—the world of the families of both Emmett Till and his killers, the historical forces that brought them together in the same place, and how the crime came to loom so large. Putting the killing floor of the barn on the map of West Half, and the Delta, and America, is a way onto the road this country must travel if we are to heal our oldest, deepest wound.
Reviews
Captivating, contemplative and emotional
5By CagLSUAs a middle aged man who grew up in South Louisiana, I have to say this book made me face some facts that hadn’t been clearly visualized before reading this book. I’m a better man after reading it, at least I intend to be better. I also plan to make the trip to see the monuments and the barn…maybe late August this year.The History of a Barn, not Emmett Till
4By GerithegreekI agree with others that this is a book that should be read (and taught in high school). If you want every minute detail about the history, including pre-history, of the corruption and destruction of a promising region brought on by the greed of a multitude of countries and businesses, in dealing with what became the state of Mississippi and its many inhabitants who in so many ways are the product said environment and despicable money-grabbers . . . this is the book for you. I didn’t expect all that. So much miserable history. So much degradation of what could have been, should have been, allowed to be great. The loss of multitudes: of fauna and flora, of human lives and human promise. Truly a disgrace and a disaster, permitted by unethical and dishonest politicians, not just in this in this country but world-wide. My problem with the book is that so much of the information and many names, of individuals and families and businesses, and so many of the stories are repeated over and over throughout the book, the murder of Emmett Till gets a bit lost. But it’s necessary in order to come to an understanding of how this nation, at least one area of it, became so hate-filled. I’m not saying it justifies the hatred, but it fomented it. And yet . . . it seems we haven’t really learned a thing from it, and so we keep making the same mistakes for the sake of hatred and fear and greed. I just didn’t expect such an education. For a more positive view of the philosophical view of “othering” one should read Forest Euphoria—a completely opposite view of the same problem.The barn
5By thinkinboutRead it! You will not regret it.Truly amazing!
5By tglenn“The Barn” is an amazing story that connects Mississippi to its history of prosperity and violence, as well as the crossroads of music. The story of Emmett Till is truly horrific, and his death created a ripple that launched folks into the civil rights movement to the point where he has become a symbol of how to take care of each other as well as their memory. This book showed me that Emmett Till is alive and everywhere in our society.Well Done.
5By MiWarnerI expected to read an account of Emmett till’s murder. Instead I received a detailed history of America through the eyes of the Mississippi Delta. Thoroughly researched, deeply personal, and achingly emotional, this is the best book I have read in some time.
