Gregory A. Fournier Speaks about Zug Island on the Michael Dresser Show

On Friday, April 19, 2013, I did a web radio interview for the Michael Dresser Show. It has been a while since I had done any live Zug Island promotion, but with summer coming, I thought it might be a good time to let readers know that Zug Island makes a great vacation read.

Despite its serious subject matter, race relations during the summer of the Detroit Riots, Zug Island is an often humorous account of a college dropout and an intercity young man who fall in and out of rhythm on Detroit's mean streets to discover that the face of racism comes in every shade of color.

Zug Island is a blue collar, coming of age, buddy novel which tells a slice of history much neglected in the telling of this horrible period of Detroit's history. It's been almost fifty years since July 23, 1967, and the city has yet to recover from its conflagration.


Amidst all the devastation, an unlikely friendship endures which suggests that hope for the city's recovery lies with its people and not its politicians.

Listen to my latest Zug Island web radio interview (15 minutes):
http://michaeldressershow.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Greg-Fournier-4-19-2013.mp3

Good Advice For This Valentine's Day

Whether you have a significant other or not, be good to your heart this Valentine's Day.

Can a person stop a heart attack when alone, simply by coughing repeatedly? The experts say no! Don't be fooled!

snopes.com/medical/homecure/coughcpr.asp

Detroit in Ruins or a City on the Mend?

I just read a book review  in The New York Observer by Michael H. Miller of a photo study called Detroit: 138 Square Miles, a depiction of the ruins of Old Detroit, complied by Ms. Taubman - apparently she doesn't have a first name.

This book is yet another entry in a genre of books about Detroit called "ruin porn," which shows the Motor City at its post-apocalyptic worse. What makes her book different than the rest, says Miller, is that many of her photographs demonstrate "for better or worse, there is life among those ruins."

Anyone who has traveled to Detroit and driven outside the commercial enclave of business buildings, sport complexes, and gambling casinos downtown can see that the city and many of its people are hurting. Vast blocks of cleared land look like urban prairies, punctuated by burned out ruins too numerous and expensive to demolish.

Many of these neighborhoods have occasional signs of life in homes that have long since expired their reasonable lifespans - peopled by stubborn residents who anchor themselves in their old neighborhoods because they have no where else to go.

There is a brief glimmer of hope in the gentrification of the ruins of this city - some young, educated, and optimistic people seem willing to take a chance on Detroit - a city that almost everyone believes has seen its best days.

Detroit is ripe to reinvent itself. But first it must come to grips with its rough and tumble past and restore law, order, and opportunity to its inner city residents.