It is a triumph of investigative reporting, the product of the author’s dogged research and a bold lawsuit backed by the Commercial Appeal. It also stirs an appetite for a richer history of the civil rights movement, though it cannot satisfy that hunger ... A Spy in Canaan brims with new details about the inner workings of the movement in Memphis and beyond. It rarely steps back to assess the complicated nature of black activism in this era, however. Perrusquia instead details the nature and impact of federal surveillance of American citizens exercising their right to lawful protest.
A Spy in Canaan is a reporter’s account filled with dramatic scenes, sharply etched characters and insights into FBI political surveillance, the civil rights movement and the journalistic process. And it is timely, given current protest movements on both the left and the right ... The author also puts Withers’ story in historical context, noting that it was the height of the Cold War, and the American Communist Party was widely seen as a threat. King’s confrontational, if nonviolent, tactics, moreover, were disturbing to many people, regardless of race. At one end of Beale Street now stands the Withers Collection Museum & Gallery that showcases his photography. Yet his role as an informant remains out of the spotlight. As A Spy in Canaan adeptly shows, history is not always so clear-cut. The book also makes a convincing case that the FOIA should be strengthened to help the public access records necessary to better understand this complex and pivotal period.
A Spy in Canaan, by Commercial Appeal investigative reporter... Marc Perrusquia, is a meticulously documented, finely written account of Withers’ life and times and of how his duplicity came to light. Withers’ story is fascinating and troubling, that of a man who regularly displayed courage and treachery ... This remarkable book more than succeeds in [Perrusquia's] quest.
...a riveting glimpse into Memphis history. The book recounts the origins of the city’s racial unrest and outlines its incontrovertible victimization of the black community. It offers both specific and atmospheric background to the sanitation strike of 1968 and the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. Perrusquia’s account also clears much brush from the direct path between what many Memphians would prefer to regard as ancient history and the social and economic problems which persist there today. The book is part social history, part scintillating biography, and part investigative-journalism procedural — and an all-around rousing read.
...fascinating ... Perrusquia...do[es] a good job of establishing the mood of the times and the context in which...principal characters operated, shedding light—the little there is to shed—on Withers’s possible motivation for cooperating with the FBI ... Mr. Perrusquia’s volume is a bit broader in scope [than Preston Lauterbach’s Bluff City]; he tells part of the story that only he can—the discovery of Withers’s secret and the struggle to bring it to light—and his contact with Lawrence’s surviving family members makes for insights into the FBI agent’s own personality and motivations.
Perrusquia, a longtime reporter for the Commercial Appeal in Memphis, adroitly weaves together three stories: how Withers worked for and against the movement, how the FBI used operatives like Withers to create a surveillance state in the ’60s, and, just as fascinating, how Perrusquia’s years of research, along with suing the FBI for the release of classified documents, led to his shocking discovery. Perhaps most important, Perrusquia gives readers insight into the complexities of Withers as a man, and an appreciation of the lasting impact of his photos.
Perrusquia is uncertain about Withers’ motivation—'money, patriotism' or 'his long ambition to be a cop'—and he sees him, as do many others, as a hero who publicized the realities of activist movements. A fast-paced story of a man at the center of turbulence and paranoia.
