The Other Side Of The River

Separated by a river, St. Joseph and Benton Harbor are two Michigan towns that are geographically close, yet worlds apart. St. Joseph is a prosperous.
Table of contents

Here, separated by the St. Joseph River, are two towns, St. Joseph and Benton Harbor. From the Hardcover edition. Buy the Audiobook Download: Apple Audible downpour eMusic audiobooks. Also by Alex Kotlowitz.

The Other Side of the River | Alex Kotlowitz

See all books by Alex Kotlowitz. Inspired by Your Browsing History. Looking for More Great Reads? Download our Spring Fiction Sampler Now. LitFlash The eBooks you want at the lowest prices. Read it Forward Read it first. As the author delved into this occurrence it became clear that truth depended on which side of the river you lived on.

Benton Harbor is 95 percent black, St. Joseph is 95 percent white. In Benton Harbor held the dubious distinction of the highest murder rate in the country. In not one home Eric McGinnis was a young black boy from Benton Harbor who was well liked and went to a dance in St. In not one home in St. Joseph had been sold to a black person. Shannon Madison, a black engineer hired by Whirlpool filed a complaint with the Mi. Civil Rights Commission and was able to purchase a home. Her is what the local paper, the Herald-Palladium, editorialized: Joseph is a city of nice homes and nice people.

Anyone who holds up his end will get a fair shake, regardless of color. Joseph High School Bears basketball fortunes. An eye opening read about racism then and now. Wonderful I was shocked by the racism that existed not too long ago in my county. The story came alive with places that are familiar. He masterfully builds his descriptions. The suspense is gripping. I found one hard part of the book is connecting the dot between chapters and the overall scope of the book. I would get lost in the details.

The book also quotes people swearing.

Related Stations

But I highly recommend the book. Mar 01, Dave Parnin rated it really liked it. This book addresses the deep seated racial prejudice of an all white town and an all black town that are separated by a river. The two cities, St Joseph and Benton Harbor are about an hour and a half south of me which made it much more interesting. We are so losing any gains we have made on equality over the past 25 years. I hope others see it more positive than I do. Dec 07, Janice Cantieri rated it it was amazing. Again, great reporting, great storytelling, great depth of research and understanding and time put into this piece, which dissects the race and class divide between two small towns in Michigan.

Jun 16, Gail rated it really liked it. As I said half way thru-not easy to read Its a good book. Apr 30, Eva D. Apr 27, Leah rated it liked it Shelves: The reason for the tension is because one town is predominately black and the other is mostly white. Predictably, the mostly-black town has a high poverty level, high levels of violence, low rates of education, and a fair amount of anger. The mostly-white town is mostly middle-class, has strong schools, low crime rates, and a lot of indignation.

The black community believed not without some evidence that Eric had been murdered and a vast conspiracy had formed to cover it up. The white community, on the other hand, believes that Eric had been in the white town to commit a crime, and was killed accidentally while running away from the scene. The author of this book is a journalist, which made the book much easier to read than I expected. Instead, I was pleasantly surprised that the author leaps straight into the story, making no claims about his ability to draw parallels to American society at large, no attempts to philosophize about race-based tension in the US, and no effort to say something profound for posterity.

Instead, as he says himself, he just wants to tell the story for the sake of the dead boy. Due to a variety of mistakes, assumptions, bad timing, omissions, and other bad luck, no one knows why Eric died. The few people to see Eric the night he died differ so strongly in their details that a second theme for this book could be the absolute unreliability of eye-witnesses.

I found the book fairly easy to read, but a few things bothered me about the writing. In a book that is so focused on how skin color and community affiliation affect events and perception, I found it inexplicable that this author managed to overlook his tendency to assume the unmarked category.

For example, in one case in which a crowd of people gathers, the author doesn't specify whether they're black or white, a crucial detail in a book like this. Upon reading for context, I learned that they were white, revealing that this author, even in a book that revolves around skin color, had chosen to leave white as the unmarked category. The book contains a fair amount of deep background on these two towns and their history of race relations. Additionally, the author explores some recent events in the towns that contributed to the aftermath of Eric's death.

While important, these two levels of history--recent and ancient, so to speak--weren't presented in a linear way, which was kind of confusing. The story jumped around from recent school board elections to the s, and back to the present. The author of this book spent several years interviewing people from both sides of the river: I was struck by how physically separate the lives of whites and blacks are in this community; whites simply don't cross into black areas, and vice versa.

I enjoyed reading this book, even if it was a slightly depressing reminder of how skin color still divides this country. The experiences of one group are so radically divorced from the experiences of another group that it's difficult for each to have any empathy for the other. Our backgrounds, perceptions, and opinions are so strongly formed by our skin-color-based associations that it's going to take a long, long time before we can, as a country, chisel ourselves out of those pigeonholes.

Recommended if you like history, depressing stories, unsolved mysteries, or have a grim fascination with the train wreck that is race relations in the US. Sep 10, Gabriele rated it liked it Shelves: It doesn't seem like the early 90s were that long ago, but it's somehow been 25 years since then.

And in , the mysterious death of a black teenager in small-town western Michigan inflamed the same kinds of tensions that surround race today. If you're the type of person who needs their mysteries It doesn't seem like the early 90s were that long ago, but it's somehow been 25 years since then. If you're the type of person who needs their mysteries to be solved, don't read this book.

We never do find out how Eric ended up in the water where he perished. He could have been walking and slipped. He could have tried to swim. He could have been chased and fallen in. He could have been pushed in. Trying to figure out exactly what happened bedevils Kotlowitz, as well as Jim Reeves, the detective assigned to the case.

Omar Faruk Tekbilek - Other Side of the River

What they do know is that Eric, from mostly black Benton Harbor, came into overwhelming white Saint Joseph one evening to go to a teen dance club. At some point in the night, he was busted stealing cash from a car and was briefly chased down the road by the furious owner. And a few days later, his body surfaced. Kotlowitz pulls back and widens the frame to give us the context for the scene in which Eric's death occurs. He talks about the history of the two towns, how Benton Harbor was initially the big, prosperous one and Saint Joe was little more than a string of beach cottages Despite being neighboring communities, the divides between St.

Joe and Benton Harbor just got deeper and deeper as the years passed. The communities had already been roiled before Eric's death when a white police officer shot and killed a black teenager who he mistakenly believed was a dangerous suspect in a crime. So when Eric drowned and the St. Joe's police department, unused to handling potential homicides, made some tactical errors and failed to find any serious suspects, unease and suspicions between the communities flared back up.

The book is interesting enough, and well-written enough, but it doesn't really go anywhere. Kotlowitz clearly wants to get his readers to think about all sides of the issue and by that I mean there's a definite sense that he knows most readers will be white and leads them through the struggles of the local black community so they understand why a drowned teenager was viewed with such suspicion , but he doesn't have anything especially insightful to add to the conversation.

It's a solid read, but ultimately doesn't resonate much. Jul 13, Ben Richmond rated it liked it Shelves: This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. Kotlowitz is a great reporter, and is judicious and compassionate to all of his subjects and his readers.

Ostensibly this book looks at the question of race in America in a different way; how real people react to a specific tragedy. It is a fascinating look at two towns with a spotty past, and nothing but questions as to how to move forward. But the meta-level probably tells you more about race in America than the book does: Black and poor vs. Frankly Kotlowitz, a Chicago-based writer, should know better than to draw the lines so predictably. But then he lives in the suburbs now, so maybe I'm expecting a lot. If a young Latino man surfaces in the South Branch of the Chicago River between Pilsen and Chinatown, I guess I could go and ask people about how Latinos and Asian-Americans view each other, and it would probably be the first book of its kind.

The problem with doing so is that the odds are people wouldn't view it as a racially motivated murder. But when a young black man surfaces in between RichWhite and Poorblacktown, is it time to ask those questions? Since we don't know what happened in Kotlowitz's story, it's hard to know if his prism through which he views the event is widely shared, or justified. I'm not accusing him of editorializing or looking for racism where it doesn't exist I'm sure it does exists in St. Stylistically, the book leaves a little something to be desired.

He's a clear and easy-to-read writer. His non-fiction writing techniques transitions, section breaks etc I'm sure look at home in the New Yorker, but wear thin over some odd pages. Oct 26, Julia rated it really liked it. Kotlowitz the author of the much-acclaimed book, 'There are No Children Here' has an incredibly special way of dissecting racial issues and giving perspective from both sides. This book describes two small Michigan communities northeast of Chicago.

Joseph is on Lake Michigan. It's a common vacation destination for Chicagoans given its location, recreational water activities, and quaint downtown shopping area. It's predominantly white, middle-to-upper class. A river on the east side of St. Joseph separates the town from the inland community of Benton Harbor.

It is mostly black with high unemployment, low funding for schools and other common city amenities library, hospital, administrative offices and high crime due primarily to drug-dealing. The two communities share a city hall, police force, medical facility, and jail. The book uses one incident to detail the history of the two towns and their long relationship to one another.

The event is the unexplained drowning death of a black youth from Benton Harbor who had been in St. Joseph attending a club for teenagers. The cause of death was never determined, though theories abound. In the style of Studs Terkel, Kotlowitz interviews countless members of each city about the death and about their attitudes toward both communities. The book relays the long-standing mistrust and misunderstanding of residents toward whichever town lay across the river from them. It also demonstrates attempts on both sides to bring the communities closer together, some with a bit of success, but many met with skepticism bordering on paranoia.

The death remains unsolved, but the reader is left with the attitudes and opinions of residents in an area of such stark segregation.

The Other Side of the River Summary

Yes, many cities and even small communities are highly segregated. But the presence of a physical barrier between the towns creates a heightened sense of the separation. The story of the racial divide between St. Joseph and Benton Harbor MI, this book aims to give some insight to the boundaries brought up in many political and societal tensions between the adjoining towns. It begins with the body of Eric McGinnis found floating in the St. Joseph river, but goes back to different events over the last 80 years that might cause citizens to view the unsolved case differently: What did happen that night has never been solved, and there are as many theories are there are people touched by Eric.

Joseph, I enjoyed reading this book because of the familiarity of the setting. The first half of the book I was very interested in the research going into the murder case. But after the first half, the book began to read as a research paper, and it seemed rather disjointed. The book was written neither linearly or through specific characters, it just seemed as random events were placed into the book, such as the firing of the Benton Harbor school superintendent, then the next chapter would be about a very motivating reverend of a church.

All of these play into the racial divide between the towns, but it didn't seem to make much of the murder of Eric, which I was expecting to be the focus of the book. Joseph and Benton Harbor are painted very well, the beauty of the lake, the bluff, the beaches and the river front, are explained exquisitely. If I didn't already live here, I would be planning a vacation. Being a recent transplant to the area, I of course am aware of the issues between the two towns, but I would never guess they are as bad as this book writes them in the '90s.

Maybe I am naive. I enjoyed the book because of the personal nature, but as a story, it got tedious and boring. Jun 23, Adam rated it liked it Recommends it for: Joe residents, west-Michigan politicians. A Michiganian murder mystery! I came across this Kotlowitz expose at the local library's Friendshop. I was surprised to find what seemed to be a national publication about an event in two small towns of west-Michigan.

I had never heard the tale and was intrigued by the story's racial charged background. However, the story spans many similar incidences, all of which have a common theme of bringing to A Michiganian murder mystery! However, the story spans many similar incidences, all of which have a common theme of bringing to the forefront the many yet-far-from-resolved issues of race in modern America.


  1. The Disregarded Child?
  2. Der englische Jäger - No. 14 from 14 Deutsche Volkslieder Book 2, WoO 34;
  3. The Other Side of the River Summary - leondumoulin.nl.

Joseph river, that which is alluded to in the book's title, separates to small Michigan towns, St. The two towns, while often billed as the Twin Cities, couldn't be more different, at least form a demographers point of view. In turn, it is no surprise that when crime crosses the river, in either direction, charges of racial wrongdoing explode. This is the story of one of those controversies. Kotlowitz does an excellent job of painting the picture in which young McGinnis goes missing.

Though, to the mystery buff looking for answers, the book will leave little solved, and much to be interpreted. Jul 02, Kelley rated it liked it Shelves: I read this book after I saw it on Sarah's bookshelf and I knew I was going to be attending a wedding over on that side of the state. Although it was a little dated, the premise of this non-fiction book is a really interesting look at how race and class intersect, especially in MIchigan.

It is a story about a young black man who passes away on the other side of the river from his mostly African-American, poor town of Benton Harbor. He dies in the mostly white, upper class town of St. The I read this book after I saw it on Sarah's bookshelf and I knew I was going to be attending a wedding over on that side of the state.

The book tells the story of his life, and his death from the perspective of the white officers who are investigating the crime, his mother and close friends, as well as other race related incidents which have plagued both communities.


  • WISH IS MY MASTER: The Honor of Love.
  • Environmental Impacts on Reproductive Health and Fertility.
  • 18.1K Favorites.
  • Magna Maquina 1 The Mall!
  • Only the Beginning (Warrior Chronicles).

    • My only complaint is that the book doesn't come to a resolution. I know that was the larger point given the subject matter, but I really would have liked for his crime to come to some sort of ending. Tragic case, valuable points. Jul 12, Jennyb rated it liked it. The events described in Kotlowitz's book took place in , nearly 25 years ago now. That's so depressing that I can't really even think of anything else to say about this book. About children growing up in Chicago The events described in Kotlowitz's book took place in , nearly 25 years ago now. About children growing up in Chicago's now-demolished housing projects, it could also be said to be depressing.

    But, I found it much more moving, more engaging and immediate. What's more, in spite of the often bleak circumctances and subject matter, there's an undercurrent of hope that runs through it, some kind of sump'n sump'n about the irrepressible nature of the human spirit. I'd recommend it far more highly than The Other Side of the River. Nov 07, Stephanie rated it liked it Recommends it for: I was hard on this book because I'd just finished David Simon's masterpiece "Homicide" one of the best police books ever written and I thought Kotlowitz's first book "There are No Children Here" was fantastic.

    Without those bias, I would have rated the book higher. I thought Kotlowitz lived up to the excellent reporting he demonstrated in "No Children".

    'The Other Side of the River'

    But this time he as the writer became a character. It was interesting and I appreciated the background information about how he reached some c I was hard on this book because I'd just finished David Simon's masterpiece "Homicide" one of the best police books ever written and I thought Kotlowitz's first book "There are No Children Here" was fantastic. It was interesting and I appreciated the background information about how he reached some conclusions but like I said, after Homicide, I was a little let down the Kotlowitz had to be part of the story. Finally, I've never read another author who seems to write unbiased, truthful portraits of his subject as well as this man.