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Apparent Danger: The Pastor Of America's First Megachurch And The Texas Murder Trial Of The Decade In The 1920s (2010)

by David R. Stokes(Favorite Author)

3.48 of 5 Votes: 4

ISBN

1935456113 (ISBN13: 9781935456117)

languge

English

genre

History & Biography

publisher

BASCOM Hill

review 1: This was a book that I had picked up some years ago for free at BEA. I did not have high hopes going in to it as I am not a big non-fiction fan nor do I find reading about trials entertaining.But I was pleasantly surprised by this account. Not only had I never heard of this murder trial (so it was a little like fiction because I didn't know the outcome!) but I never even heard the name J. Frank Norris before. I found his character to be fascinating as both a public speaker and master manipulator. The matter of fact handling and light conversational tone stunned me. Did he forget that he just shot someone 4 times? He himself (with only the small aid of a legal team) literally turned his murdering of an un-armed man into a not guilty sentence. There's something to be sai abo... moreut charisma and J. Frank Norris seems to embody the term. Kudos to Stokes for keeping a non non-fiction reader on the edge of their seat.
review 2: J. Frank Norris was an enigma. He is so revered in some fundamentalist circles that one of the nation's leading Libertarian speakers and writers, Laurence Vance, named his own son after him. It isn't possible to understand any historical figure by only reading books by people who don't like him, which Stokes clearly does not. It might be a reasonable thing to do to read a book by a supporter just to try to get a balanced picture in my mind. This is an okay book but the bias is so obvious it made me feel uncomfortable reading it. less

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