My New Book!

My New Book!
My New Book!

Friday, February 21, 2025

February 21, 2025: Places I Love and Hate: Salem

[For this year’s installment in my annual anti-favorites series, I wanted to complicate things a bit, considering places from across my life with which I have love/hate relationships. I’d love to hear your own complex (or simple!) anti-favorites, whether places or anything else, for the crowd-sourced weekend airing of grievances!]

I said most of what I’d want to say about why (during the 22 years I’ve lived and worked in Massachusetts since coming up here to finish my PhD dissertation long-distance and staying for my job at Fitchburg State) I’ve come to both hate and love Salem in this post on how the city remembers the Witch Trials. Here I’ll just add this: while I think some of that strange balance is unique or at least specific to Salem, I think a great deal of it also reflects the worst and best of America as a whole, and certainly of our collective memories. So, as I put it in this Shepherd book recommendation list, I love and am frustrated by Salem very much like I love and am frustrated by the US of A.

Crowd-sourced post this weekend,

Ben

PS. So one more time: what do you think? Anti-favorites you’d share?

No comments:

Post a Comment