EVER IS A LONG TIME: A Journey into Mississippi's Dark Past

Eubanks, the Library of Congress's publishing director, opens this capable memoir with an innocent question from one of his sons: "Daddy, what's Mississippi like?" In earnest prose, the author tries to describe "the world that shaped him" with its rigidly defined social code of race and class, using an almost coolly detached approach similar to the low-key demeanor of his father, a former county agent who earned much less than his white peers. While Eubanks applauds the changes that have occurred since Jim Crow laws ruled, he recalls with dread a terrifying incident when his "mixed marriage" drew hateful stares. He's almost sentimental when remembering his shielded childhood on the family farm outside the town of Mount Olive, where segregation's strict social laws were enforced. Eubanks's pleasant, unchallenging narrative can grind, as it drones on about his childhood home, "an idyllic place where racism and intolerance had no place." But that placid tone dissipates when he speaks forcefully of racial murders, the killing of civil rights leader Medgar Evers and the state's white citizens' deep hatred of Northerners. The book's unnerving sections come in Eubanks's revelations about the ultra-secret Mississippi State Sovereignty Commission, which kept files on its black citizens—including Eubanks's parents—during the civil rights era. As the book ends, it seems Eubanks is content to tie off his occasionally uneven mix of restrained horror and romanticized yearning with a neat bow, reconciling both past and present and leaving the perfect opening for a well-positioned sequel. Photos not seen by PW. Agent, Martha Kaplan. (Sept. 15)