First Week of Book Sales

It's been an exciting first week since "Ungodly" hit the bookstore shelves. At the Macon Barnes & Noble, where Christopher Paine led the drive to the book named as B&N's "must-read" title for the summer, it was the best-selling book at the store over the past weekend. There have been lots of encouragement and postive responses to "Ungodly", but perhaps the most gratifying to me has been the endorsements from African-American readers. After all, I'm a white guy writing about a predominantly black community. I attempted to do it in a colorblind fashion, and it has been great to hear that blacks who read the book credit me with some success in that effort.
First of all, Dr. Catherine Meeks, of Mercer University and the Center for Racial Understanding in Macon, gave a strong testimonial for the book for a DVD, which was used for in-house education and marketing by Barens & Noble. She stated that she was prepared not to like the book, because of the nature of the crimes it detailed. However, she felt that the racial issues raised in "Ungodly" were set in a sociological and historical context that made it easier to understand. After a speech I gave to the Downtown Rotary Club in Macon, a black member of the club approached me and thanked me for writing the book. He was a corrections officer who was familiar with the difficulties York and the Nuwaubians posed while he was in state custody. He had little patience for the loyalists who are still trying to claim that York is innocent. Then, at one of the Barnes & Noble stores, I was engaged in a bracing discussion of the book with a young black woman who works at the store. She said she normally reads a book in a matter of hours, but this one, she had to go slow, due to the painful stories that are told. She asked me, "Did you ever get past the feeling of disgust when you were writing about what this man did?" Sadly, I had to answer, "No".
The topper was the reaction from a black woman, a former cult member who was an important source for my research. After reading the book, she told me, "You've finally told our story." It was perhaps the best compliment I could have received. That's it for now.