1996 [Paperback]

In the mid-1990s, our first stepping stone to justice was the article titled "Microwave Harassment and Mind Control Experimentation" by Julianne McKinney, raven1.net/microwav.htm

Our second stepping stone was (and is) the exhaustive and scholarly research into "non-lethal weapons," (clearly the birthplace of the living nightmare Ms. Naylor and an estimated three million North Americans are living,) ... of law student Cheryl Welsh, mindjustice.org

The third stepping stone was the 2001 book about vigilante stalking by David Lawson, a private investigator, titled "Terrorist Stalking in America", reviewed here: multistalkervictims.org/terstalk.htm

Ms. Naylor's book, with some material provided by Cheryl Welsh, is clearly a fourth and major stepping stone, by which the targets of vigilante stalking and electronic mind/body harassment hope to see the day the criminals are stripped of their cover, and justice will be served.

I read this book because I love Gloria Naylor. I hadn't heard about any of her travesties from 1996 before reading this book. I found it frightening at times, but it was so compelling, I couldn't put it down. Of course, certain parts are fictionalized, but Ms. Naylor obviously did a lot of research on domestic intelligence and mind control while writing this book. I recommend it for all Gloria Naylor fans and for anyone wishing to know more about the capabilities of the U.S. government.

Acclaimed author Gloria Naylor has returned to the literary world after a seven-year hiatus with a fictionalized memoir detailing her experiences in 1996 after vacationing in St. Helena Island to focus on her writing. After an altercation with her neighbor and requests for her to keep her cats off her property, Gloria sets out some poison that kills one of the neighbor's beloved cats. Unfortunately, her neighbor has a brother who works in the National Security Agency, and she reports Gloria as a drug dealer to get back at her. This starts a chain of events and investigations from not only the local police department and Jewish organizations, but also federal agencies.

Gloria starts to notice weird things going on around her and her house, to include lots of traffic on her secluded part of the island. She also realizes she's being followed and that someone is entering her house and tapping into her computer. It gets to a point where Gloria can't trust her friends or converse with those online because she's afraid of who's watching her. When she can't take the harassment any longer, she cuts her time on the island short and moves back home to her brownstone in New York. Sadly, things do not end and Gloria must find a way to return to the normalcy of her life.

While reading 1996, the reader is fully aware that this book is a memoir of sorts as it's written in first person, giving Naylor's actual experiences through this ordeal, in which she's the main character. However, it's also fictionalized in that she obviously doesn't really know what's going on next door, across the street or at the NSA for example. It is an intriguing story, reminiscent of conspiracy theory type movies popular in the last few decades. While I can say the story definitely makes you say hmmmmm, some parts of it will make the average reader question the validity of Naylor's allegations while others will merely view it as entertainment only.

It is the third-person accounts that I couldn't really follow, coupled with parts of the story which could've been tightened, edited a bit more, and the abrupt ending should've been a bit more conclusive. The characters, with the exception of Naylor, weren't developed as well as I would've liked, but overall, I did enjoy the story. While there are many speculations on what the federal government has the capability to do, and cases and documentation against them, it's a bit unfortunate that these types of allegations are lumped with UFO sightings and alien abductions.

Reviewed by Tee C. Royal

of The RAWSISTAZ™ Reviewers

› Go to Amazon.com to see all 25 reviews  4.3 out of 5 stars