Faces at the Bottom of the Well

September 28, 1992
In nine grim metaphorical sketches, Bell hammers home his controversial theme that white racism is a permanent, indestructible component of our society. $25,000 ad/promo.

August 1, 1992
Bell, in the news because he is on leave from Harvard Law School to protest its never having hired a tenured black woman, has written a provocative and creative book that nicely follows his And We Are Not Saved ( LJ 8/87). His "interweaving of fact and fiction" and an "unorthodox form" make for stimulating reading and clarify for white readers the obstacles continually faced by black Americans and the miseries they endlessly endure. No other book features, as does this one, a Racial Preference Licensing Act, Racial Data Storms, Afroatlantica Emigration, Space Traders (guess who they are coming to take away?), the Anne Frank Committee, and White Citizens for Black Survival. Bell's thoughts about Minister Louis Farrakhan and Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas are a contribution to the public dialog on those figures. An especially important and relevant publication for public and academic libraries.-- Katherine Dahl, Western Illinois Univ., Macomb

Copyright 1992 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

September 1, 1992
Two years ago, law professor Bell took unapproved leave of absence from Harvard to protest his department's failure to hire a tenure-track black woman. When his absence exceeded university limits, he was fired. But readers who therefore expect him to be an Ice T with a Ph.D., denouncing white racists, will be disappointed. Bell's tone in these essays is not confrontational but persuasive. That is, when it is not playful, as when he posits Atlantis resurfacing with an atmosphere only blacks can breath, or a Racial Preference License, whose purchasers may exclude persons on the basis of race. He has one long dialogue with the fictional namesake of one of Langston Hughes' fictional interlocutors, another with the fictional Geneva Crenshaw from his allegorical work "And We Are Not Saved" (Basic, 1989). One of the two themes unifying the essays--that U.S. racism will not change until "whites perceive that nondiscriminatory treatment for us will be a benefit for them"--may contradict the other--that U.S. racism, sustained by alienated institutions, will never change--but this won't prevent Bell's book from finding a ready audience. ((Reviewed Sept. 1, 1992))(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 1992, American Library Association.)