Sons of Darkness, Sons of Light (1969) by John A. Williams

 Book Review

Sons of Darkness, Sons of Light (1969)

by John A. Williams

  I would not have read the excellent Sons of Darkness, Sons of Light by John A. Williams if I had not already Night Songs, also by John A. Williams, as part of the 1,001 Novels: A Library of America project.  Night Songs is about a drug-addicted jazz musician and his compatriots, while Sons of Darkness, Sons of Light is about the steps taken by a mild mannered college professor and civil rights activist to incite a race war by using a Israeli hit man to murder a NYC cop who himself murdered a black high school student.  It seems almost unfathomable to me that this book was published by a major publishing house, during the fall of 1969, and basically no one noticed or cared.   It certainly isn't popular today, despite being the earliest example I know of the post-World War II, post-Vietnam American Civil War scenario in literature.

  These days we associate a race based Civil War with the right, but Sons of Darkness, Sons of Light tells it from the other side, down to a group of militants in South Los Angeles who are depicted collaborating with the John Birch society for a common end.  It isn't a perfect novel, and it is a bummer that he cuts the narrative off right at the beginning of the race war itself, but still, shocking for its time and still shocking today, no wonder it's been "forgotten."