Keepinitreal is the Evanston Public Library's book club dedicated solely to non-fiction; this month we are reading "Hellhound on his Trail" by Hampton Sides. Discussions are free and open to all.
On April 23, 1967, Prisoner #416J, an inmate at the notorious Missouri State Penitentiary, escaped in a breadbox. Fashioning himself Eric Galt, this nondescript thief and con man—whose real name was James Earl Ray—drifted through the South, into Mexico, and then Los Angeles, where he was galvanized by George Wallace’s racist presidential campaign.
On February 1, 1968, two Memphis garbage men were crushed to death in their hydraulic truck, provoking the exclusively African American workforce to go on strike. Hoping to resuscitate his faltering crusade, King joined the sanitation workers’ cause, but their march down Beale Street, the historic avenue of the blues, turned violent. Humiliated, King fatefully vowed to return to Memphis in April.
With relentless storytelling drive, Sides follows Galt and King as they crisscross the country, one stalking the other, until the crushing moment at the Lorraine Motel when the drifter catches up with his prey. Against the backdrop of the resulting nationwide riots and the pathos of King’s funeral, Sides gives us a riveting cross-cut narrative of the assassin’s flight and the sixty-five-day search that led investigators to Canada, Portugal, and England—a massive manhunt ironically led by Hoover’s FBI.
Keepinitreal is the Evanston Public Library's first book club dedicated solely to non-fiction. Discussions are free and open to all, no registration required. Books will be held at the Main Library, 2nd Floor, Reader's Services Desk and the discussion will be in the Seminar Room on the 3rd Floor. Call 847-448-8620 or visit the blog at www.keepinitrealevanston.wordpress.com for more information.
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