read this book

Timothy Tyson's Blood Done Sign My Name (2004) has been well recognized among American historians and was well reviewed, but I hadn't heard of it til my daughter Anya gave it to me for Christmas. I finished it tonight.
One of the extraordinary things about this book is the voice in which Tyson chose to write it, which makes me want to speak more personally than I normally would in even an informal review; but first--
his book is a personal history, a family history, a community history (of Oxford, NC, in 1970,disclosing the antecedents and consequences of a racial murder), a state history (esp. 1898-1980), and a reflection on national history as it has been shaped by slavery and white supremacy. It is powerful conceptually, thematically, linguistically, and philosophically; and it is unpretentious to boot. It's both original and brave--professionally speaking it would have been safer to write in a more orthodox mode. But its personal voice is both appealing and, I finally saw, indispensable. In that way it reminds me of Kenji Yoshino's Covering, another remarkable work that most people would have done a different way (and so would have been unable to do).
The book begins with a day in 1970 when Tyson, then ten, is told by a neighbor that his (the neighbor's) father and brothers have just killed a ... black man. (The other boy uses the inevitable, dehumanizing term in the context; Tyson uses real names throughout.) The book unravels the story factually and emblematically.
When I was a graduate student at Cornell in this period (1967-1970), no one was murdered on campus, but there were guns whose relevance was racial, as a famous Newsweek cover photo showed (in one light). It's been a long time, but Tyson's book has stirred the memories. I'll see if I can write about them (separately). Whether or not I can do that, I gratefully salute Timothy Tyson.