Four Strangers Intersect in Detroit of 1963 - an Editorial Review of "The World As It Is"

Book Blurb:

From the award-winning author of Savage City, The Arsenal of Deceit, and The Ghosts of Detroit, the gripping final novel in Donald Levin’s Detroit Quartet.

Detroit 1963. The lives of four strangers intersect when a shocking act of police violence inflames the city:

Amp Hamilton, aspiring Motown musician and eyewitness to the killing of a Black woman by a white cop, torn between King's nonviolent resistance and Malcolm X's radical Black nationalism,

Hannah Posner, fiery civil rights attorney battling both racism and police corruption in her search for justice for her clients,

David Buchalter, coasting through life and searching for meaning at the beginning of a decade of intense social and political upheaval, and

Denny Rankin, ex-cop private detective whose investigation into the death of a small-time con artist draws him deep into Detroit’s criminal underworld.

The World As It Is brings these four together in a riveting, detailed portrait of a city—and nation—on the brink of tumultuous tragedies and changes.

Book Buy Link: https://geni.us/iBWy

Editorial Review:

Title: The World As It Is

Author: Donald Levin

Rating: 4.2

“The World As It Is” by Donald Levin is a historical fiction novel that follows interconnected characters brought together by racial injustice and police brutality in 1963 Detroit. At its center are events based on real life, set in a world that seems determined to crush the hope of a civil rights movement and in extension, the dreams of an entire generation. By the end, some of its characters who are at first passive, guarded, guilty-ridden and trapped, find connection, love and purpose, offering a rare testament to the power of ordinary people to resist injustice even in the darkest times.

“Hang on, partner, Amp silently urges. He has been stopped by the cops many times, beginning when he was thirteen and always for no particular reason. More than one episode ended with a beating, totally unwarranted. That’s the world as it is if you’re Black in the City of Detroit.”

This passage in the early pages of the novel introduces Amp Hamilton, a young Black man shaped by years of trauma and anger. He watches helplessly as a police officer accosts a Black woman and her male companion. The reader sees Amp’s investment in the outcome as he speaks to the man as if he can hear him, and as he calls him “partner,” suggesting a sense of shared identity and fate. The reader knows that Amp has been on the receiving end of police violence himself. This passage ties to the novel’s central argument about the world being deeply unjust, and it establishes Amp’s role as a witness, an experience that later drives him towards activism and the Black Nationalist Movement.

“Is it possible the cops stowed him someplace?” “It’s happened before. They used to arrest people and then move them from precinct to precinct without charging them so their attorneys couldn’t find them. Judge Krause was pissed at the way you were all treated. The police’d be foolish to try and hide anybody.” “Yeah,” Amp says, “and we all know the police don’t never do nothing foolish.”

Here, Amp is talking to his attorney Hannah Posner, asking her to help him find DeMarcus Cleveland for a family member. Amp and DeMarcus are not relatives but individuals whose relationship is forged through shared trauma and police violence. The passage first reveals Hannah’s knowledge of police tactics before exposing the authorities’ view of Blacks as cargo or objects that can be moved and hidden. The passage further primes the reader for a deeper exploration of corruption, resistance, and the struggle for justice in a world full of systemic oppression.

“We’re militant Black nationalists,” says another of the men at the table. “We reject the nonviolent approach of Martin Luther King in favor of direct action to smash the white capitalist hegemony.”

The speaker is undoubtedly advocating for a more aggressive approach to achieving Black liberation. The reader thus feels his growing frustration and unquenchable desire not to merely change the system but to destroy it entirely even as the movement remains fractured between Martin Luther’s nonviolence approach and growing calls for urgent revolutionary change.

In this historical fiction novel, Levin beautifully alternates between high-tension scenes and quieter moments of reflection. High tension scenes include Scott’s shooting, a moment that quickly establishes the stakes and plot themes, while quieter moments include Amp and Malone’s conversation, which offer a quiet exploration of Amp’s worldview and the emotions underlying it. The reader notices that the sentences become shorter and feel more urgent, especially as the narrative draws to the climax. They heighten the stakes and create a sense of inevitability, all while reminding readers that in a world full of systemic injustices, there only exists time for desperate, urgent action. The strength of the book lies in its fully realized characters, their arcs, as well as their significant growth over the course of the novel. A character like Amp begins angry and disillusioned but ends purposeful and engaged. Hannah is first isolated but with time learns to accept love. Their arcs among others, are central to the novel’s themes of resilience and transformation.

Levin has masterfully recreated the 1963 Detroit, grounding the novel in real historical events. The city is very vivid and tangible, and its complexity which includes division by race and corruption as well as its music, activism and hope is fully realized. He has offered his fans a book that echoes to the killing of Blacks in America today, and the ongoing struggle for justice through movements like Black Lives Matter. “The World As It Is” is not a novel the world can easily ignore.

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