Steve Oney's 'And the Dead Shall Rise,' about the trial and lynching of Leo Frank in Georgia in 1915, is one of the most interesting books I've read recently. At page 649, the end of the book, my first question was, "Where was this guy's editor?" But I started thinking about what Oney was trying to accomplish in this unusual, detailed, and flat narrative. If Oney so much as hints at his own opinion about anything, I don't recall it -- the tone is, "This happened, and I'm reporting it." This isn't a passionate defense of Frank's complete innocence, or guilt. The central figure is almost less Leo Frank than Tom Watson, one of the most tragic figures in U.S. politics, and the subject of C. Vann Woodward's great 1938 biography. Watson in the 1890's was on track to be a contender for the presidency, and if he had . . . well, we're now on Niall Ferguson's 'what if' territory. But Watson in the 1890's was a remarkably prescient progressive, and failing as a progressive he taught Richard Russell, another tragic figure, exactly the wrong lesson.
Comments