The stories in Mr. Gratzimi’s books on the hotel industry range from hilarious to deadly.  For example, a hotel client’s head was crushed by someone throwing a liquor bottle from the penthouse.    This was caused by minors drinking in someone’s room.  This was a very moving case which caused me to tear up—lives destroyed for a party.

Clients as well as employees break the hotel’s rules often in spite of the hotel’s security staff.   Clients have illegal parties, being so drunk that they don’t know someone is bleeding in the same room.  This applies to dignitaries, celebrities, and average hotel clients.

Some of the clients do such foolish things that they seem to want to be caught.   “From what I heard, from a later report, the man’s wife, who was in fact an attorney, prior to divorcing him, represented the prostitutes pro bono.”

There were cases of employees using rooms to have sex with other employees.   One employee’s husband charged a room to his wife’s credit card so he could have sex with a prostitute.  However, his wife worked in the same exclusive hotel and brought management and security to her husband’s room.

Unknown to me, emergency situations happen often in hotels in which paramedics, police and/or firemen have to be called.   I couldn’t even imagine the types of things noted in his books.   The books were eye-opening and shocking, but easy reads.

Written by Rosa L. Griffin

Mr. Phillips’ nonfiction book about the rat race is difficult reading for me because it’s full of statistics, research, history, philosophy, and truth–ideas which take some contemplating.  I find myself taking notes which certainly slows down my reading.   I bought his book at a Citylit book festival in Baltimore, MD. 

Phillips speaks of the “Goodwill revolution which will not be violent”.  He quotes many prominent leaders like Martin Luther King, Jr, Nelson Mandela, etc.     He says that “the social class systems divide people, resulting in envy, hatred, heartache, and much bloodshed.”  

“Revolutions are not unanimous (not supported by everyone).   Evil is very pervasive in our society…is an aberration, because we are born good.   The things that touch us deeply are the needs for health insurance, living wage, hunger of children, justice to prevail, abhorring bullying, abuse, and exploitation of the weak and innocent.”

“We deny our feelings of goodwill to embrace apathy, insensitivity, because we feel helpless to do anything about it”.   Rat Race is a book that everyone in America and the world needs to read.   I haven’t finished reading it yet, but I hope to soon.

I’m submitting this partial review to get his book out there for those who don’t know about it.   Michael Irving Phillips’ book is neither depressing nor boring, but very enlightening.

Written by Rosa L. Griffin

I’ve always had admiration for farmers who have one of the hardest jobs of all—to attempt to make the earth bend to their will.  A farmer is entirely at the mercy of God and the elements.     A bad crop, storm, flood, pestilence, injuries, or drought can cost him everything he has.   Or, he can be a sharecropper (quarter-yield) or share tenant (half-yield) on that farmer’s land and suffer the same fate.

Such was the case for Henry McAllan’s family.  Henry was an engineer who decided to buy a farm—what he had always wanted.  He bought out the previous owner who had four other tenant farmers on his land.  Henry was the kind of white man who loved the land as if it were his mistress which his wife, Laura, observed.   Henry’s father Pappy and brother Jamie hated the land and only loved the alcohol, tobacco, food, etc. that any profit could bring them.

The story opens with Pappy having been murdered and his two sons Henry and Jamie are burying him in someone’s else’s old grave in the rain and mud.  Whenever it rained there, the creek would rise, and they’d be stranded for days.   That made me read on to find out why Pappy was murdered.  

Henry paid one of the townspeople $100 on a hand shake to rent a nice house for his wife, children, and Pappy.   When they arrived in 1940’s Mississippi, they found that the house was sold to someone else, and the seller was nowhere to be found.  So, they all had to live in the work shack on the land with no running water or electricity and a leaky roof with a shed on the side.   So, the gentle Laura, who was used to living better, had to do everything in that shack or in the barn with Pappy and the kids.   Laura and the kids were in for a hard life.   Pappy ruled over Laura and the kids as if he owned everything instead of his son, Henry.

In the middle of the harvest, Henry’s brother Jamie returned from the war after being a bomber pilot.   Henry, Laura, and the children loved the prodigal son though he drank heavily.

Hap and Florence’s black family was one of the share tenants who had to produce crops as part of the agreement.    Things were mostly all right if you can judge how black people were treated.  For example, black people could not sit on the seat next to a white person but had to ride in the back of a truck at the mercy of the elements.   They couldn’t walk through the front door of the town grocery store but had to come in and leave by the back door.   Blacks had to stay to themselves and couldn’t be seen to live better than whites.  And, the medical care for blacks was atrocious.

Hap and Florence had a son, Ronzel, who came home after being a tank commander in the military.   When he returned home, he felt worse than a second-class citizen after being a war hero.   This was what Jamie and Ronzel had in common—the horrors of war that they tried to drink away together, which was forbidden in this culture.

Read Hillary Jordan’s book to see what leads up to Pappy’s death.   It is an intense well-told story of cultures and sacrifices.

© 2008 Hillary Jordan

Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, 2009

Written by Rosa L. Griffin

Ms. Adams’ book is wonderful.   You know the old saying, “When it rains—it pours”?   Well, little Billie (named after Baltimore singer Billie Holiday) has had her share of ups and downs, and most of her downs were brought on by unsavory adults as well as by an emotionally unavailable mother (not taking either her new husband or Billie’s side) and an absent father.   The story takes place between 1948 and 1966 between Baltimore and South Carolina.

I can’t leave out Grandma Gertie in South Carolina who had a special bond with her granddaughter, Billie, to the point of always knowing when Billie was in trouble in Baltimore.   Ms. Adams did her due diligence in researching Baltimore City, Maryland, locales and history for her fiction novel.   And, if you have lived in Baltimore, the locales in her book will hopefully dredge up pleasant memories for you.  It brought back many memories for me.

Her book is fast-paced and thrilling because there are mysteries going on during the novel that make for a lot of suspense.   Issues confronted are child molestation and revenge for same (the word “honeymoon” and its special meaning, age-old dilemma of who can a child tell), female child made into a numbers runner, the danger of payback, and whether love is even in Billie’s future.

Copyright 2013 Stella Adams, Plenary Publishing, Charleston.  Look for her new book, Beneficial Life, just published in 2018 by Stargo LLC.

Written by Rosa L. Griffin