Description

Winner of the J. Anthony Lukas Book Prize and a New York Times Book Review Notable Book of the Year

In the summer of 1999, in the tiny west Texas town of Tulia, thirty-nine people, almost all of them black, were arrested and charged with dealing powdered cocaine. The operation, a federally-funded investigation performed in cooperation with the local authorities, was based on the work of one notoriously unreliable undercover officer, Tom Coleman. Despite the flimsiness of the evidence against them, virtually all of the defendants were convicted and given sentences as high as ninety-nine years. Tulia is the story of this town, the bust, the trials, and the heroic legal battle that ultimately led to the reversal of the convictions in the summer of 2003. But the story is much bigger than that; Tulia makes clear, these events are the latest chapter in a story with themes as old as the country itself. This DailyLit edition includes a link to discussion material for reading groups.

Praise for Tulia:

"Tulia, in Blakeslee's rich and deeply satisfying telling, resembles nothing so much as a modern-day To Kill a Mockingbird—or would, that is, if the novel were a true story and Atticus had won."
—The New York Times Book Review

"[A] vivid portrait of law enforcement gone wrong. . . . Excellent and eminently readable."
—David Garrow, Washington Post Book World

". . . A masterpiece of true crime writing."
—Publishers Weekly

About the Author

Nate Blakeslee, a former editor of the Texas Observer, broke the Tulia story for the Observer in 2000. The cover story was a finalist for a National Magazine Award. In 2004, he won the Hugh M. Hefner First Amendment Award for his drug war reporting. He is currently a senior editor at Texas Monthly and a contributing writer for the Texas Observer. Tulia, for which Blakeslee was awarded a Soros Justice Media Fellowship, won the Texas Institute of Letters Best Book of Nonfiction Award, the J. Anthony Lukas Book prize, and was a finalist for the PEN/Martha Albrand Award for First Nonfiction. Nate lives in Austin, Texas.

Extended Copyright Information

Copyright 2005 by Nate Blakeslee. All rights reserved.

Previously published by PublicAffairs, a member of the Perseus Books Group.

No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

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Opening Lines (Experimental)

TOM COLEMAN entered the courtroom of the Swisher County courthouse on Thursday afternoon, March 20, 2003, wearing an Italian-style black leather jacket over a blue shirt and black tie. A sea of black faces in the packed gallery craned their necks to get a glimpse of him, but he did not return their ...

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Copyright

Copyright 2005 by Nate Blakeslee.

All Rights Reserved.

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