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Teaching for Change's Busboys and Poets Bookstore Welcomes Acclaimed Director and Author John Sayles

A Moment in the Sun

John Sayles might be wasting his talents making movies. The acclaimed director has true skills as a writer, possibly eclipsing his work behind the camera. Anyone who has seen Lone Star, Eight Men Out, or any of Sayles' numerous movies knows that it would take prodigious writing talent in order to top his accomplishments as a director. Yet, Sayles new novel, A Moment in the Sun, shows him as a top notch writer, possibly one of the best at bringing to life America’s dark and dirty history. Set in the late 19th century, this is a raw and epic novel, loaded with Sayles' typically brilliant explorations into injustice and racial inequality. Plus, he doesn’t shy away from the harmful reality of U.S. imperialism, showing its deadly effects on the people of the Philippines and on the Americans unlucky enough to be a part of the U.S. military. For fans of Howard Zinn’s essential work, A People’s History of the United States, Sayles has created a fiction equivalent. His stomach-turning, descriptive powers effectively squelch glorifying of a time period associated with Reconstruction and Imperialism. In summary: Crucial Reading. -- Don Allen, Teaching for Change Publications Director