{"product_id":"9781501147296","title":"Writing to Save a Life: The Louis Till File","description":"\u003cp\u003eA major literary figure tells “a searching tale of loss, recovery, and deja vu that is part memoir and what-if speculation, part polemic and exposé” (\u003ci\u003eThe Washington Post\u003c\/i\u003e) about two generations of one family—civil rights martyr Emmett Till and his father, Louis—shortlisted for the National Book Critics Circle Award.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eEmmett Till took a train from his home in Chicago to visit family in Money, Mississippi; a few weeks later he returned home dead. Murdered because he was a colored boy and had, allegedly, whistled at a white woman. His mother, Mamie Till, chose to display her son’s brutalized face in a glass-topped casket, “so the world can see what they did to my baby.”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eEmmett Till’s murder and his mother’s refusal to allow his story to be forgotten have become American legends. But one darkly significant twist in the Till legend is rarely mentioned: Louis Till, Emmett’s father, Mamie’s husband, a soldier during World War II, was executed in Italy for committing rape and murder.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn 1955, when he and Emmett were each only fourteen years old, Wideman saw a horrific photograph of dead Emmett’s battered face. Decades later, upon discovering that Louis Till had been court-martialed and hanged, he was impelled to investigate the tragically intertwined fates of father and son. \u003ci\u003eWriting to Save a Life\u003c\/i\u003e is “part exploration and part meditation, a searching account of [Wideman’s] attempt to learn more about the short life of Louis Till” (\u003ci\u003eThe New York Times Book Review\u003c\/i\u003e) and shine light on the truths that have remained in darkness.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWideman, the author of the award-winning \u003ci\u003eBrothers and Keepers\u003c\/i\u003e, “is a master of quiet meditation...and his book is remarkable for its insight and power” (\u003ci\u003eSFGate\u003c\/i\u003e). An amalgam of research, memoir, and imagination, \u003ci\u003eWriting to Save a Life\u003c\/i\u003e is essential and “impressive” (\u003ci\u003ePittsburgh Post-Gazette\u003c\/i\u003e) reading—an engaging, enlightening conversation between generations, the living and the dead, fathers and sons.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Scribner","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47033687081200,"sku":"9781501147296","price":16.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/9781501147296_p0.jpg?v=1763706911","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/9781501147296","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}