Reckoning With The History Of Slavery

In 'How the Word is Passed,' writer and poet Clint Smith visits eight places central to the history of slavery in America, including Thomas Jefferson's Monticello plantation and Louisiana's Angola prison. "We are taught that the history of slavery is something that happened almost like when there were dinosaurs," he says. But Smith notes that his grandfather's grandfather was enslaved — and that "this history that we are told was so long ago wasn't, in fact, that long ago at all."

Maureen Corrigan reviews two thriller novels: Chris Power's 'A Lonely Man' and Jean Hanff Korelitz's nightmare of a thriller 'The Plot.'