AMERICAN NIGHTMARE

KELLY McWILLIAMS

American Nightmare isn't a conventional mystery; it is a mystery with historical overtones. It's an extremely informative, difficult, yet thought-provoking historical novel about the United States, though it isn't always perfect. Clark White lived through the Atlanta race riots that happened more than 100 years ago. From that point on, his life has been affected by what he saw and experienced; to understand further, he gets a chance to work for the NAACP to investigate hangings and other egregious crimes that had affected African-Americans during that time. Clark is a light-skinned African-American, and he can pass for white. He goes from town to town investigating and learning what it's like to be a black person. What Clark learns is that the truth is more horrifying and disappointing than any made-up story. This reviewer highly recommends American Nightmare as a treatise/novel on what went wrong over 100 years ago and, perhaps, what remains unchanged in many parts of the United States and, in fact, in the world.