The Strivers' Row Spy by Jason Overstreet

The Strivers' Row Spy
by Jason Overstreet
Pages: 448
Date: August 30 2016
Publisher: Dafina
Series: None

Review
Rating: 4.0 out of 5.0
Read: July 24 to 25 2016

I received an ARC of this book from NetGalley, Dafina, and Kensington Books exchange for an honest review.

This is both the author’s first book (as far as I can tell) and therefore my first book that I’ve read by him (that’s the both part – first book (written by him; read by me).

I’ll start off with something that I normally put at the end, or nearish the end, the rating. Under my long ago and not currently active rating scheme, used pre-web based book cataloging by me, I would have rated this book somewhere between 3.74 and 3.84. I am uncertain how that actually corresponds to my current rating scheme, but, somewhere around 4 stars.

Two things before I move into a more detailed review; women and ‘roaring twenties’/time in general. I put that discussion under spoiler tag, not because there is anything spoiler-y about it, but because I kind of lost whatever point I was attempting to make, and so that section is boring. Boiled down – for the most part the book is focused on the male actors in this ‘Roaring ‘20s Harlem Renaissance’, though there were a few ‘powerful’ women who make brief appearances; other than a few mentions of prohibition, and a few mentions of how people are flocking to the area, many of them arty, the Roaring Twenties/Harlem Renaissance part was kind of thin.

There are a few powerful women in this book, strong, independent, etc. They do in fact appear in this book. But that’s just it. They mostly appear. They have few lines and while they have ‘things’ to do, and the like, they are almost never seen doing them. No, for the most part, the book is focused on the men. Sure, the book is from the point of view of Sidney Temple, but by noting that the book is focused on the men, I do not mean just that point – that it is from Temple’s point of view. Because there are important men who do stuff in this book, and they do do them in the book, as opposed to off stage, or just assumed. So it isn’t that the book is from Temple’s point of view that limits everyone else’s actions and impact. While it is 1919-1925, and while that would/could limit certain things certain powerful women can/could do, that more redirects them than removes them from history.

I’m babbling needlessly. To a certain extent it is because of the nature of the book. I was promised certain things, while realizing certain things when I went into the book. Like the part where a young man is given opportunities during the Roaring Twenties to do things. And yet, while there is the occasional mention of the year, I didn’t really notice anything ‘Roaring Twenties’ about this book beyond the mention of prohibition. To a certain extent, I believe that is because of the type of man Sidney is – focused on his career and his wife (though her slim presentation/barely there character is one of the reasons I babbled about powerful women; she isn’t specifically one – important but not powerful, no it was her friend Ginger who I was thinking of as powerful – independently wealthy, and independent of a controlling man). On the other hand – young man, going undercover in the roaring twenties, needing to do ‘things’ . . . . kind of lends itself to an image of a guy bouncing around some seedy locations and speakeasies. This book isn’t that type of book.

Luckily, for my own enjoyment of this book, I had actually forgotten that description of the book – undercover agent operating in the Roaring Twenties in New York, specifically in Harlem during its renaissance. I mean, this is when Harlem had something like a golden age – yet, you would not specifically know it from the actions in the book (specifically worded that way, because you would know it from the words – it is in fact mentioned several times that ‘grand things’ were occurring, they just, for the most part, happened for Sidney’s wife while Sidney was off being serious and stuff. And the wife’s world, experience of that ‘Harlem Renaissance’ is only seen once or twice when Sidney happened to be present – I only specifically recall two occasions that might fall into this ‘Renaissance’ type situation (well three, but being kicked out of your seats at a theatre kind of ‘ruins’ the ‘good vibes’) – once when the wife had a huge grand birthday party; and once when Sidney was wandering around and ended up in a club).

I mean, Sidney did visit with various people while undercover around the city – places outside of work site I mean, and almost every single time the meeting was in some restaurant or the like.

So, book.

During a college graduation ceremony, while Sidney is actually in his graduation robes and climbing some stairs, some man approaches Sidney and thrusts a card at him (I’m wording this wrong) and indicates that the BOI, Bureau of Investigation might be interested in hiring Sidney – or at least in interviewing him. If interested, call the number on the card. And so begins Sidney’s slide into the undercover world.

Three things to note – BOI – the description for the book is slightly misleading, specifically the ‘And when he’s tapped by J. Edgar Hoover to be the FBI’s first African-American agent’: 1) the BOI did not become the FBI until 1935; 2) Sidney is not the first African-American agent hired by the BOI in the book (the first in real life and in the book is mentioned in the book, and plays a small role – James Wormley Jones – and Jones is described, on Wikipedia, with a task similar to the one he has in this book, and the one Sidney is given – to infiltrate the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA) under the leadership of Marcus Garvey – and Jones actions lead to some similar results in RL and in the book); 3) Hoover did not become head of the BOI until 1924, 5 years after the start of this book here (the guy who preceded Hoover, William J. Burns, wasn’t even in office as the head of the BOI by the start of this book (he became the head in 1921; a guy named William J. Flynn was the head when Sidney was hired by the BOI, he was in office from 1919 to 1921 – it is possible the guy before him was actually in charge at the start of this book, since Flynn didn’t start until July of 1919, though the book did mention that the guy Sidney talked with was just getting appointed to be the director – heh, one of the driving forces in this book, and for Hoover, was the bombing of Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer’s house – something that Flynn was brought in as director to investigate; Hoover, though, was with the BOI in 1919, and a new division head – he was head of the new General Intelligence Division).

Real life Hoover was tasked with monitoring and disrupting the work of domestic radicals. And his “Targets during this period included Marcus Garvey, Rose Pastor Stokes and Cyril Briggs, Emma Goldman, and Alexander Berman; and future Supreme Court justice Felix Frankfurter who, Hoover maintained, was "the most dangerous man in the United States". I mention all this because Sidney, in this book, is tasked with monitoring three people – Marcus Garvey (UNIA), James Weldon Johnson (NAACP), and Max Eastman (and indirectly, W.E.B. Du Bois of the NAACP)).

I got distracted by history there, looking up the real life history of the time. Hmms. Dr. James Eason is also a real life figure, member of the UNIA – had a similar end story as to the one in the book.

*shakes self* Right sorry.

This was/is a quite interesting undercover story about a time and place that I knew relatively little about – specifically the time and place of African Americans during the 1920s. There were both times of great ‘sinking’ into the scene, of feeling it, while other times things seemed more surface, more remote/removed from the action. And a few cases where things were just way too rushed.

Only read the spoiler after reading the book read the book yet?Loretta is so annoyed with her husband that she goes to the extreme measure of leaving him, and, for that matter, her country. Going all the way to Paris France. So . . .when Sidney hunted her down? the next words after Sidney arrived at Loretta’s door in Paris were something along the lines of ‘months passed’. Um . . kind of overlooked Lorretta accepting Sidney back into her life, eh?

Overall I enjoyed the book and look forward to reading the next book by this author.

July 26 2016