The Virginia Festival of the Book may have been cancelled, but the sliver lining is that you can read a book any time, any place. Here are a few suggestions.
With the cancellation of the Virginia Festival of the Book, and recommendations to practice social distancing, there’s never been a better time to pick up some extra reading material. While we’re disappointed that we won’t get to hear from these authors in person, their work and words are still well worth your time. Whether you’re interested in fiction, non-fiction, true crime, or poetry, we have a recommendation to suit your tastes. Here’s a list of books from festival authors to keep you company at home.
Collections
Short stories have the power to open up entire worlds in just a few pages—and the stories within these collections do exactly that.
Midnight at the Organporium by Tara Campbell
A Girl Goes Into the Forest by Peg Alford Pursell
The World Doesn’t Require You by Rion Amilcar Scott
Fiction
While history books often overlook the lives and experiences of women, historical fiction brings their stories to life. Pick up any of these novels to experience history alongside strong female characters.
Brides in the Sky by Cary Holladay
Ribbons of Scarlet by Laura Kamoie
Call Your Daughter Home by Deb Spera
These two novels embrace characters with disabilities, providing much-needed representation for a community that is often overlooked in contemporary fiction.
Like Wings, Your Hands by Elizabeth Early
Flannelwood by Raymond Luczak
Here are three novels that invite you to discover the impacts of contemporary diaspora, both individually and culturally.
Gun Island by Amitav Ghosh
Travelers by Helon Habila
Last of Her Name by Mimi Lok
Explore the personal impacts of war on individuals, families, and communities with these two World War II-era novels.
The Falls of Wyona by David Brendan Hopes
How Fires End by Marco Rafalà
Nonfiction
The Flint water crisis is just one example of America’s long history of environmental racism—here are two well-researched books that will enlighten you.
The Poisoned City: Flint’s Water and the American Urban Tragedy by Anna Clark
A Terrible Thing to Waste: Environmental Racism and Its Assault on the American Mind by Harriet Washington
More than merely looking back, well-crafted memoirs shine a light forward. These memoirs explore themes of abuse, addiction, race, gender identity, and more.
Black Indian by Shonda Buchanan
Ordinary Girls by Jaquira Diaz
The Rib Joint by Julia Koets
Best-selling series
There’s a reason the following authors have all spent time on the best-seller list. These are the latest in their respective series, so be prepared to get hooked on the characters.
A Bitter Feast by Deborah Crombie
Hi Five: An IQ Novel by Joe Ide
In a House of Lies by Ian Rankin
Crime and thrillers
True-crime fans can get lost in these page- turning examinations of violent crimes and how the rural communities where they occurred responded.
Furious Hours: Murder, Fraud, and the Last Trial of Harper Lee by Casey Cep
The Third Rainbow Girl: The Long Life of a Double Murder in Appalachia by Emma Copley Eisenberg
If you enjoy beautifully written page-turners that will keep you guessing until the very end, here are three literary thrillers that should be at the top of your list.
Miracle Creek by Angie Kim
Saint X by Alexis Schaitkin
Blackwood by Michael Farris Smith
Poetry
With the right words, poets can create music on the page. These three collections promise lyrical language and thought-provoking beauty.
Deaf Republic by Ilya Kaminsky
What Penelope Chooses by Jeanne Larsen
Kontemporary Amerikan Poetry by John Murillo
Poetry written in response to tragedy, violence, adversity, and the complexity of the human experience has the power to combat despair. These three collections demonstrate why there’s no better antidote to despair than art.
Dispatch by Cameron Awkward-Rich
In the Months of My Son’s Recovery by Kate Daniels
The Last Love Poem I Will Ever Write by Gregory Orr
Romance
Even busy professional women need to make time for love. In these three contemporary romance novels, the protagonists attempt to balance work and love.
A Bodo's employee wiped down a railing on Sunday, March 15. On Monday, the bagel shop announced a temporary move to take out only.
A week ago, schools were still in session, the bars and restaurants were full, and most of us were going about our everyday lives, albeit with a growing sense of dread. Here at C-VILLE Weekly, our most pressing problem was what to do with a multi-page cover story we’d prepared for the book festival, which had just been cancelled.
Then came the UVA announcement, then the public schools. Then the events began falling like dominos, all the local harbingers of spring: the 10-miler, TomTom, even the Friends of the Library book sale. For the first time in the paper’s history, we scrapped our events calendar, the bread and butter of every issue, as the CDC advised social distancing and everyone in town, seemingly simultaneously, began to realize that our everyday lives were no longer sustainable.
Watching news of the coronavirus as it steadily does its damage across the globe has been like watching a slow-motion car crash, a multi-car pileup that’s headed straight for you. Yet, it’s still a shock when it hits. Virginia, which had zero known cases of COVID-19 when we first began reporting on the virus two weeks ago, now has 51, and the first Charlottesville case was announced on Monday.
By Monday afternoon, businesses on the Downtown Mall were closing up shop. I stopped into Bizou, an old favorite, and found the normally bustling dining room quiet and dark, the employees lined up behind the counter, eager for a takeout customer. They’re planning to try starting delivery. They’re hoping for the best.
Staying home, avoiding gatherings, shutting down (temporarily) our communal public life—it’s the right thing to do, the only thing to do, to keep the most vulnerable members of our community safe. But it still hurts.
Volunteers put sandwiches in plastic bags at the PB&J Fund on Monday. Photo: Zach Wajsgras
Virginia reported its first two coronavirus cases on March 9. By March 13, Charlottesville and Albemarle’s governments had each declared a local state of emergency and Governor Ralph Northam had ordered all public schools in Virginia to close for at least two weeks. Charlottesville’s first positive COVID-19 case was announced on March 16, and as of March 19, there have been three more positive cases. Schools and other institutions around the city have been scrambling to adjust, and at press time, many local restaurants and businesses were temporarily shutting down or had switched to delivery only. Here’s a rundown on some of the biggest changes that have happened this week.
Our schools
In times of crisis, strong communities rally together. That spirit was on full display at the PB&J Fund Monday morning, when a dozen volunteers bustled about, sorting donations into lunch packages for students who wouldn’t have access to food while their schools were closed.
“We are packing up lunches for 300 kids in the city today,” said Executive Director Alex London-Gross. “We are so grateful that the elementary school PTOs in the city were mobilized, and really have done a great job getting these donations pouring in.”
Starting on Tuesday, both the city and county schools picked up where the PB&J fund and the PTOs left off, providing grab-and-go breakfasts and lunches at several area locations during the school shutdown. (For more information about food pickup times and places, go to www.charlottesvilleschools.org. In the county, visit www.k12albemarle.org.)
The rapidly escalating situation means schools have been forced to work on the fly to continue to provide some facsimile of their normal services.
“We are talking to principals, and teachers soon, about how to stay connected to students while they’re at home,” says Albemarle County Schools Strategic Communications Officer Phil Giaramita. The school will offer optional, ungraded “self-directed learning activities,” as well as opportunities for teachers to check in on the social and emotional state of their students as the closures continue.
Though some parents will be working from home, many people still have to go to work, potentially leaving young children unsupervised. The city and county schools are looking for ways to provide childcare for families who might not otherwise have access, though firm plans have not been announced.
“Everybody’s working really hard to come up with solutions,” says Krissy Vick, the city school’s community relations liaison. “This is all so fluid.”
Our university
Like many universities around the country, UVA decided to move all its classes online, urging students not to come back to school after spring break ended on March 16.
“My first reaction was being sad,” says UVA Student Council President Ellie Brasacchio. “As a graduating fourth-year, it’s very possible that my undergraduate career just ended. What’s giving me hope and optimism is I think the university’s response to all of this has been very good, particularly in their response to helping first-generation and low-income students.”
The school has given money to help students with travel-related expenses, and Student Council has created a program to pair students in need with donors looking to help.
In the classroom, the shift to online learning will require instructors to get creative. Andrew Garcia, a fourth-year history and politics major, says it feels like the school didn’t give the faculty much guidance on how to make the transition.
“My Italian class, our final grade is on an in-person movie that we’re supposed to make,” Garcia says, an assignment that is now impossible. “How are you going to grade things? People are going to have unequal resources. My books are [in Charlottesville]. I live eight hours away.”
Some students don’t have reliable internet access at home, which will make online classes especially difficult.
Brasacchio and Garcia note that many students are returning to Charlottesville despite the directive to stay away. President Jim Ryan repeatedly urged students to head home, but also shared a heartfelt message offering sympathy to everyone who had been “pouring their hearts into something that will now not happen.”
The university’s closure will also have serious effects on the school’s student workers, university staff, and contract workers. Gyms, dining halls, libraries, and other facilities will either close completely or be open for limited hours. Arielle Hogan is a technician at a biology lab in the medical school. She says she doesn’t know if she would continue to get paid if the lab has to shut down.
As of Tuesday afternoon, some dining halls and libraries, as well as the parking system, were still operating as normal, despite the spread of the virus. UVA spokesperson Brian Coy says the school is aware of the situation, and is working to assist its staff, but that a plan hasn’t been finalized yet.
“Everyone kind of went into response mode,” Coy says. “No one’s ever done anything like this.”
Our shelters
People experiencing homelessness are especially vulnerable to the coronavirus. With Salvation Army shelters at capacity and overnight shelter program PACEM facing a shortage of volunteers, downtown day shelter The Haven has stepped in to house guests overnight. The Haven was granted exceptions to its special use permit for the duration of Charlottesville’s state of emergency, per a resolution passed at Monday’s City Council meeting.
PACEM has had to significantly reduce its volunteer force due to the coronavirus threat.
“Manpower is going to become a real issue going forward,” says Jayson Whitehead, executive director of PACEM. “[We] rely heavily on volunteer involvement, and some of our congregations have an aged population—those folks are appropriately concerned about coming into our environment.”
With the volunteers it has now, PACEM has been screening each guest for symptoms of COVID-19 before admitting them to its host sites, and has sent one guest they feared had the virus to UVA hospital (his results came back negative). It’s also implemented social distancing, making sure there’s six feet in between all cots, and provided some guests with face masks—but desperately needs more, along with gloves, Whitehead says.
Meanwhile, The Haven has also implemented a range of policies to keep its guests, staff, and volunteers safe, including asking all volunteers and staff who are high-risk to stay home, and assembling a low-risk volunteer task force to assist remaining staff. Everyone must wash or sanitize their hands before entering the building.
“The real problem is for someone who is in that circumstance, they can’t practice social distancing, at least not in the same way,” says Steven Hitchcock, executive director of The Haven. “We’re trying to be responsive to that and keep the community safe.”
Other organizations that support at-risk communities have faced different challenges. With panicked shoppers wiping out the aisles at grocery stores around town, local food pantries like Loaves & Fishes have gotten the short end of the stick. The pantry receives nearly half of its food supplies directly from grocery stores, and has noticed a significant decrease in donations in recent days. When Wegmans—one of the pantry’s largest bakery donors—only donated one loaf of bread on Friday, “we realized that might be a new normal,” said Executive Director Jane Colony Mills.
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Quote of the Week
“The coronavirus pandemic is giving us a window into what it looks to shift our lives when there is a major change in our safety status. Climate change is going to do the exact same thing to us that the coronavirus is doing to us now.”
—local resident Emily Little on the proposed city budget not including climate change funding
Updated 3/19 to reflect current number of coronavirus cases in Charlottesville
New Dominion owner Julia Kudravetz has temporarily closed her store, but she says the shop will deliver books for free. PC: Natalie Jacobsen
In the past few days, outbreaks of COVID-19 have led to mass cancellations and postponements of events around the country, from the N.C.A.A. basketball tournament to Coachella. Though Charlottesville’s first presumptive positive case was just announced on March 16, efforts to contain the virus spread as much as possible led organizers to call off one of the city’s largest events of the year, the Virginia Festival of the Book.
The decision was weeks in the making, according to Jane Kulow, director of Virginia Center for the Book. Festival staff began monitoring the coronavirus situation in late February, and started receiving cancellations from authors as early as March 2, including one from Washington who told them, “You don’t want me to come.”
On March 4, staff released a statement announcing that the festival would proceed as planned. But by March 9, they had “received many more cancellations and queries from people,” especially those who are immunocompromised, Kulow says. It became clear that it was best to cancel the festival.
“This festival has a 25-year legacy, bringing 20,000 to 30,000 people into the community,” Kulow says. “We know the community is disappointed, [and] that it’ll have a huge economic impact…but the bottom line is we have to consider the health of the community.”
“This has been a very emotional process for the festival’s staff, but it’s been made easier by the warm, sympathetic responses we’ve received,” she adds.
Since announcing the festival’s cancellation last Wednesday, its three staff members have been busy sending individual messages to attendees, authors, publishers, venues, and volunteers, as well as “answering questions about refunds, and undoing all the program logistics that we’ve spent a year planning,” says Sarah Lawson, assistant director of Virginia Center for the Book.
Because most of the festival’s programs are free to the public, staff plan a select amount of ticketed events, such as lunches and banquets, and other sponsored programs to help offset costs. But now that the festival’s missed out on these major fundraisers for the year, its staff is asking ticket holders to donate part (or all of) their refund to the festival, and is inviting the public to make donations.
Authors who planned to attend the festival have also lost out on book sales, Kulow adds. “We encourage everyone to buy their books at local bookstores,”—to help both the authors and the stores that depend on the influx in sales the festival brings in.
“We had a wonderful command center for the book festival in our basement, where we had all the books organized by day and by event,” says New Dominion Bookshop owner Julia Kudravetz. “We’d still love to sell them to people, so they can have those books during this unusual time. We count on that as a significant part of our income for the year, how we pay our staff, and continue to bring literature to the community.”
New Dominion will be closed to the public until at least March 31, but—with just a call or email ahead—customers in Charlottesville and Albemarle can get books delivered to their doorstep for free. (Those outside of the area can get books shipped.) Anyone willing to venture to the Downtown Mall can get their books in person through the shop’s curbside pickup service.
And with the thousands of visitors the festival brings in every year, the city’s hotels, restaurants, vendors, and other attractions will certainly take a hit from its cancellation, says Courtney Cacatian, executive director of the Charlottesville Albemarle Convention & Visitors Bureau. The Omni Charlottesville, for example, was set to host several events during the festival. The hotel says it’s reimbursing reservations from both authors and attendees who were coming to town specifically for the festival.
While book lovers will have to wait until next year for a full-fledged festival, its staff is currently in conversation with other book festivals around the country about putting on a virtual event, which would include programming and conversations from an array of authors.
“We’re [also] exploring additional year-round programming for the local community,” adds Lawson. “Stay tuned!”
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]We’re continually covering the impact of the novel coronavirus on our community–this page includes all our prior news coverage.
The first case of COVID-19 in Charlottesville was confirmed on March 16. As of June 9, there were 649 reported cases in the Charlottesville area, and 19 deaths. Statewide, there were 51,251 cases and 1,477 deaths. See the latest Virginia DOH numbers, including a map of cases, here.
On 3/30, Governor Ralph Northam ordered everyone to stay home unless they are seeking medical attention, buying food or other essential supplies, caring for a family member, or “engaging in outdoor activity, including exercise.” The executive order—in effect until at least June 10—also required all public beaches and campgrounds to close, and allowed in-person gatherings of 10 or more people to be punishable by a Class 1 misdemeanor. The governor had previously ordered the closure of all schools until the end of the academic year, and many nonessential businesses—including gyms, barber shops, and salons—for at least 30 days.
The city and county schools are providing to-go breakfast and lunch bags for students who rely on the public schools for breakfast and lunch each day. Delivery sites and more info at charlottesvilleschools.org/food.
The University of Virginia moved all classes online and announced Final Exercises will not happen as scheduled, as the school looks for “creative alternatives.” On March 17, the school closed all gyms, libraries, and other facilities, and promised to “honor existing commitments to compensate” its employees “for the foreseeable future.”
For more local news updates, follow us on Twitter, and check out Charlottesville Tomorrow’s “Ask a Reporter” community Facebook page.
In an effort to contain the growing coronavirus/COVID-19 threat, a lot is shifting. Schools are closed, government proceedings are different, local venues are cancelling and postponing events, and local shops and restaurants are closing or pivoting to different business models. We’ll keep you updated as best we can on this page.
On Monday, March 30, Gov. Ralph Northam issued a stay-at-home order, which mandates that individuals remain in their place of residence except for food, supplies, work, medical care, and exercise. And when out, people should follow best social distancing practices and stay at least six feet away from others.
Follow @cville_culture on Twitter for a daily lineup of virtual concerts, book readings, and more. Have one you’d like to feature? Email erin@c-ville.com.
Classes and in-person events on Grounds and in town are cancelled; events at John Paul Jones Arena are postponed through the weekend; ACC has suspended the spring athletic season; and more.
Classes scheduled for March 16 and 17 have been cancelled, and most will move online effective Wednesday, March 18. All events scheduled to be held on the main campus and at satellite locations are cancelled or postponed, through April 4.
All public meetings of city boards and commissions are cancelled except for City Council; the public is encouraged to take advantage of remote participation options and to not attend the meeting in person.
All city-sponsored events and activities, including Parks & Rec activities, are cancelled.
The public libraries will be open until 6pm on Monday, March 16, and then closed through the end of March. The library directs patrons to their digital resources at jmrl.org/on-download.htm.
All operations (concerts and lessons) are suspended until further notice. March and April concerts will be rescheduled, and spring music classes are still set to begin April 13. Private music lessons are available through Skype. Beginning Friday, March 20, in conjunction with WTJU 91.1 FM, The Front Porch will be broadcasting live concerts every Tuesday and Friday night.
The Swing into Spring event scheduled for March 15 has been postponed until May 31; March and many April shows are either cancelled or postponed. Check with the venue about other events as bands continue to update their tour dates.
Per a Facebook post, the downtown record shop will limit its in-store hours, as well as the number of customers allowed in the store at one time. Customers can shop remotely for curbside pickup or mail delivery.
No events for the remainder of March. Check the theater’s website for the most up-to-date information about which events have been cancelled for good, and which will be rescheduled.
The station continues to broadcast via 91.1 FM Charlottesville and online at wtju.net. Beginning Friday, March 20, in conjunction with The Front Porch, the station will be broadcasting live concerts every Tuesday and Friday night.
All meetings, events, programming, and production is suspended as of March 18. Production for Sweat and The Children, scheduled to run at the theater between April and May 2020, are postponed until next season. The building is also closed to the public for eight weeks.
No events for the remainder of March. This includes Charlottesville Ballet performances, concerts, film screenings, and more. Check the theater’s website for the most up-to-date information about which events have been cancelled for good, and which will be rescheduled.
The local library system will close at 6pm on Monday, March 16, and remain closed through the end of the month. This applies to all JMRL facilities, including library branches in Charlottesville, Crozet, Greene, Louisa, Nelson, Northside, Scottsville, and the Bookmobile. All library materials due in March will have their due dates changed to April after 6pm on Monday, March 16.
The shop is closed, but customers can shop remotely. Books will be available for curbside pickup or local delivery. All events, except book clubs, postponed through the end of March.
Per a press release issued on Monday, March 16, The Bridge announced it has closed its gallery, ceased after-school programming, and cancelled all social programs until further notice, though it will be holding a “quarantine haikus” event online. The organization has also postponed its REVEL 2020 fundraiser, originally scheduled for Saturday, May 2.
Closed through the month of March. “We hope to roll out new ways of enjoying our programs should the pandemic continues in our region,” said the March 17 announcement.
Local food pantry remains open, but has cancelled all volunteer shifts. Staff will hand out pre-packaged boxes of food to those in need. Donations are still being accepted to help buy food.
Per a press release issued March 17, the shelter is operating by appointment only, and public spay and neuter services are on pause. Rummage store temporarily closed.
Still delivering, and taking extra preparation and delivery precautions. Because delivery volunteers will not interact with clients receiving meals, the organization will call clients via phone to check on their well-being. Meals on Wheels is in need of phone brigade volunteers to call and check in on clients.
Caterina Martini in 2017, outside her home in Tuscany, where she is currently quarantined.
Photo courtesy subject.
Just weeks ago, Caterina Martini was celebrating the first birthday of her daughter, surrounded by friends and family at a large gathering. Hugs and kisses passed freely from person to person.
Life changed quickly for Martini and her family on March 10, when the Italian government issued a national quarantine to fight the spread of the coronavirus.
Until further notice, she is sharing her home with her closest family members, just outside of Charlottesville’s Italian sister city Poggio a Caiano.
Martini, who visited Charlottesville in 2016 through an exchange organized by the Sister City Commission, says the quarantine is currently in effect until April 3, and that no one in her circle has become infected.
Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte announced on March 11 that all bars, restaurants, hairdressers, and nonessential company departments had to close, in a move that is sure to further damage the Italian economy.
“The largest part of us don’t see this as an economic crisis, but as the inevitable consequence of a necessary safety measure,” says Martini. “We are all concentrated on the virus and on the prevention of it, so we do what we have to, to survive—literally.”
At the time of her email to us, she reported that citizens in her region of Tuscany (where there are currently about 40 reported cases of coronavirus) have “permission to go to the supermarket and to drugstores, but we have to follow some rules, like use a surgical mask and gloves to protect us, enter just two or three at a time in the stores and stay almost a meter away from other people.”
Martini also says that in order to travel long distances within the country, or to visit a neighbor or family member, Italians need a special certificate to prove that the trip is necessary.
Public offices are open, operating by appointment, and taking the same types of precautions.As for those who need parts for their Vespa or a new pasta sieve? “We can still have almost everything delivered (Amazon is working a lot), and the trash is still handled regularly,” says Martini.
President Donald Trump’s initial denial of the magnitude of this health crisis (instead focusing on financial mitigation, which had little effect on the stock market) has led to many U.S. citizens feeling vulnerable, as Americans face a lack of resources including test kits (it’s been reported that the state of Virginia has less than 700 available). Italy too was late in recognizing the pace and impact of the outbreak, and quickly became Europe’s coronavirus epicenter.
Christian Althaus, who models infectious diseases at the University of Bern in Switzerland told The Guardian: “You can argue they [Italy] noticed it late, but that could have happened elsewhere too. Once they realised what was happening, I think they took it seriously. The first lockdown was the right choice, and expanding it nationwide probably too. They realise they need to curb the epidemic.”
Martini does not deny the economic peril, but says Italians will weather it together. “The quarantine, for the economy, is disastrous, but as we usually say in Italy, ‘We are all on the same boat,’” she says. “So we hang on, and we use this as an opportunity to stay with our families, at home, doing the things that usual life doesn’t permit us to do.” It’s a sentiment that could certainly ring true on our side of the globe in the weeks to come.
Tami Keaveny is a member of the Charlottesville Sister City Commission.
Charlottesville's Confederate statues continue to attract nighttime activity.
Sunday marked the end of Charlottesville’s Liberation and Freedom Days, a week of events intended to commemorate the arrival of Union troops in Charlottesville in 1865. Though you’d never know it from our public monuments, for the majority of Albemarle residents those troops heralded freedom, not defeat (at the time, 53 percent of our local population was enslaved).
The final event of the week was a discussion of intergenerational trauma in African Americans. An emerging field of study in psychology, this research suggests that deeply traumatic events (like slavery and segregation) can leave traces, not just in one person’s life, but through multiple generations.
It’s an interesting thing to think about this week, as former mayor Mike Signer releases his own account of the events of the “Summer of Hate,” and the Virginia legislature has finally passed a law that could allow Charlottesville to move our Confederate monuments.
If the memorials bill is signed by Governor Ralph Northam, Generals Lee and Jackson could be out of our downtown parks by this fall. But the trauma they’ve caused—from their original erection in whites-only parks at the height of Jim Crow, to the white supremacist violence unleashed in their defense in 2017, will leave its trace.
The city could take a page from Dr. Jennifer Young Brown, who told the crowd on Sunday that the first step in healing from and halting intergenerational trauma is to recognize it. “Once we acknowledge there is a thing to mourn, we can move forward,” she said.
The legacy of slavery, segregation, and racism in Charlottesville won’t disappear when the monuments come down. But if we continue to grapple with that history and hurt, we can build something better in its place.
As mayor of Charlottesville during the violent white supremacist invasion in 2017 that killed Heather Heyer and injured dozens, Mike Signer earned a place in the city’s history, and in the national spotlight.
Now, Signer has turned his leadership during the Summer of Hate into a book—one that, like the Charlottesville book written by former governor Terry McAuliffe, will not be launched in Charlottesville. (According to his publisher’s website, a book launch was planned for Richmond on March 10. The ensuing book tour does not include Charlottesville, though Signer says an event is tentatively planned at UVA law school.)
Signer’s arc in the mayorship—from a triumphant declaration of the city as the “capital of the resistance” in January 2017, to decamping from the infamous “Blood on your hands” council meeting post-Unite the Right and being called to task by his fellow city councilors that August—provided a trajectory previously unseen on City Council, one worthy of a flawed hero in a Greek tragedy.
Indeed, the title of his first-person account, Cry Havoc, comes from Marc Antony’s battle cry of “havoc” in Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar. The reference to classical tragedy continues in the book’s preface, which lists a cast of major characters from the Summer of Hate.
Signer, who faced a barrage of invective at almost every council meeting during his term from 2016 to 2019 and a parody Twitter account that describes him as “Founder, Capital of the Resistance & really important guy,” has his share of local detractors, some of whom will see his account as self-serving.
His response: “I think they should read the book. I try to be extremely honest and self-reflecting about my mistakes. I talk about the dangers of scapegoating. I talk about how I was tempted to scapegoat others. That certainly wasn’t the aim of the book.”
His intention, he says, was to provide “a useful first-person account from my perspective of this event, which it seems clear is going to be among modern American history’s touchstone events,” like Selma or Hurricane Katrina or Kent State.
He says, “I had a really unique perspective on this.”
And Signer was in the unique position of feeling the hate from both sides. He received enough anti-Semitic trolling from white nationalists that the Anti-Defamation League contacted him and reported it had compiled a file with 800 attacks. From critics on the left, he was dubbed “neo-fascist” and “Hitler’s best friend.”
What happened in Charlottesville, he says, is a microcosm of “democracy under siege” during the Trump era. “I have really deep feelings about Trumpism across the country,” adds Signer, who also authored 2009’s Demagogue: The Fight to Save Democracy from Its Worst Enemies.
In Cry Havoc, he explains some of the “more risky” actions he took as mayor, such as declaring the city the capital of the resistance during a giant press conference that drew hundreds, but also put the city in an awkward position because he didn’t obtain a permit, which made it difficult to cite Richard Spencer for his unpermitted tiki-torch rally later in Lee Park, according to the Heaphy Report.
Among the things he’d do differently now is explain more frequently the limitations of the mayor in Charlottesville’s city-manager-as-CEO form of government, he says.
He doesn’t deny pushing the bounds of the weak-mayor system, and when he blamed then-city manager Maurice Jones and former police chief Al Thomas in a Facebook post for the failures of August 12, he faced censure by his colleagues on council.
In the book, Signer calls most of their complaints “petty or plain false.” He chose to apologize rather than put the city through further turmoil by fighting the disciplinary action, he writes, and he agreed to conditions, such as not meeting with staff alone or making pronouncements as mayor without another councilor with him. However, in the footnotes, he points out that he ended up ignoring most of the restrictions placed on him.
He reconsiders the city’s attempts to discourage counterprotesters from showing up when the KKK came to town July 8, 2017, and the suggestion that locals should “not take the bait.” That could have been cast differently to acknowledge the people who wanted to bear witness to hate, says Signer.
His leap in front of the LOVE sign on the Downtown Mall August 17 is another wince-inducing incident. “It was totally tone deaf,” he concedes.
The book reveals previously unknown details—although not without contradiction. Signer alleges that Bellamy called him after the August 12 debacle to say both Jones and Thomas should be fired. Bellamy denies that he ever said that.
According to Signer, the Virginia Municipal League threatened to cancel the city’s liability insurance after he took aim at Jones and Thomas on Facebook. It also demanded the independent review that became known as the Heaphy Report not be released to the public.
“Thus I was put in a virtual straitjacket,” writes Signer. “I was told in no uncertain terms not to say anything further about the failures that had occurred, lest I expose myself personally to the cost of defending claims.”
One of the biggest struggles from the three white supremacist events of 2017—Spencer’s tiki-torch march around the Lee statue in May, the KKK in July, and Unite the Right in August—was “wrestling with the First Amendment,” says Signer.
He was repeatedly confronted with “First Amendment absolutism,” an interpretation by federal courts that he says made it almost impossible for state and local governments to limit potentially violent events. In his book, he introduces little-known 20th-century Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson, who argued for more practical restrictions in the face of “planned imminent incitement.”
Signer, who’s currently vice president and general counsel at local digital product developer WillowTree, defends council’s attempts to move the rally to McIntire Park because of public safety concerns. “I worked with City Council to override the city manager, police chief, and city attorney,” he says, hiring an outside law firm to inform Jason Kessler his permit would be granted for McIntire Park.
Not surprisingly, Kessler sued, and on the night of August 11, just before Kessler’s neo-Nazi cohorts marched through UVA grounds with torches chanting, “Jews will not replace us,” a federal judge ruled the rally would stay in then-called Emancipation Park.
After the attack on UVA students standing in counterprotest around the Thomas Jefferson statue in front of the Rotunda, Signer says he got a text from then-UVA president Teresa Sullivan, asking the city to file a “motion for reconsideration based on new evidence”—the violence that had just occurred. But it was too late.
In his penultimate chapter, “Overcoming Extremism,” Signer details some of the lessons learned from Charlottesville’s experience. One of those is to separate antagonistic groups, which didn’t happen here and which “we wanted to do at McIntire Park,” says Signer.
When Governor Ralph Northam banned weapons from the Capitol grounds at the January 20 Second Amendment rally, Signer believes it was because of lessons learned from Charlottesville.
History and conflict are complicated and rarely play out in black and white. The best learning comes from the gray areas, he says, not from Hallmark or Hollywood treatments that neatly tie up events. “There’s a tradition that you see the truth and the learning in the honest account of the messy parts,” he says.
And one of the most valuable lessons of 2017 was it “showed the country how violent the alt-right is.”
At the first City Council meeting after the violence of Unite the Right, on August 21, 2017, furious protesters took over the dais and called for Signer’s resignation. Photo: Eze Amos
‘What is Mike Signer saying?’
“The Hon. Michael Signer” (as he’s identified on his book jacket) says he has tried to be “extremely honest and self-reflecting” in his new book. But it may take more than that to rehab our former mayor’s reputation here in Charlottesville.
In the fallout from the white nationalist rallies in the summer of 2017, complaints weren’t limited to the fellow city councilors who officially censured him or to the residents calling for him to resign. As newly unearthed public records indicate, local Democratic mega-donor Sonjia Smith, whose daughter was assaulted at the rally, also criticized his performance after Unite the Right.
“I’ll add my voice to the voices of many saying, ‘Why did the police stand by and do nothing?’ and, ‘What is Mike Signer saying?’” Smith wrote in an email to public relations specialist Susan Payne.
“Mike is not doing himself any favors in his discussion of the police response,” she added. “I listen to him, and I realize that I will do everything in my power to stop him from being in a position of authority over me and the people I love.”
Payne forwarded the response to Signer, who replied, “This is a problem.”
Hear from two passionate local beekeepers at Crozet Artisan Depot on Saturday. Getty Images
Honey do: Ian Henry and Buzz Barnett get hive minded in their lighthearted Adventures in Beekeeping talk, discussing honey production and the importance of these hard-working insects to our ecosystem and food sources (a fact that can’t be overstated these days). The pair promises to indulge their swarm of listeners in a local honey tasting at the end. Sweet!
Saturday, March 14. Free, 11am. Crozet Train Depot, 5791 Three Notch’d Rd. crozetartisandepot.com.
