...there’s nothing partisan or argumentative about Blood in the Water. The power of this superb work of history comes from its methodical mastery of interviews, transcripts, police reports and other documents ... it’s Ms. Thompson’s achievement, in this remarkable book, to make us understand why this one group of prisoners did, and how many others shared the cost.
...a masterly account ... This is not an easy book to read — the countless episodes of inhumanity on these pages are heartbreaking. But it is an essential one ... Blood in the Water restores their struggle to its rightful place in our collective memory.
[Thompson's] tells the story of the riot and its aftermath with precision and momentum ... Ms. Thompson dispatches with the riot and the retaking in 219 pages. Had she stopped there, one could recommend Blood in the Water as a brisk, dramatic retelling. But she is far more interested in the legal fights that ensued, which take up the book’s remaining 352 pages ... Blood in the Water is a good work of history but leaves one wondering whether it is as balanced as it might have been.
…a compassionate, exhaustively researched, and brilliantly paced account of the events that began on September 9, 1971, when inmates seized control of an upstate New York prison, and which, 46 years later, still resonate in the courts and in the hearts, minds, and still-damaged bodies of the Attica survivors and their families … provides us with nothing less than a road map of American racism… Thompson draws us into the heart of our national darkness ... Blood in the Water has been criticized in some quarters for softening the edges by underplaying the radicalism that fueled the uprising, and there is a kernel of truth in this … focus more on their humanity than their ideology … Thompson is a lucid and cinematic writer, and her superb descriptive powers take the reader into the chaos of the initial uprising and the resourceful improvisations that followed.
Though her sympathies are entirely with the prisoners, she extends humanity and individual witness to the guards ... Thompson’s capacity for close observation and her honesty, which are impressive, are occasionally undermined by a desiccated political vocabulary.
...a magnificently comprehensive study of the incident ... Thompson’s book is a masterpiece of historical research; it is thoroughly researched, extensively documented and reads like a novel. Her sympathies clearly lie with the prisoners and the families of the hostages but the analysis is fair and evenhanded.
