{'fraction_non_alphanumeric': 0.0269248937175248, 'fraction_numerical': 0.00944733112895607, 'mean_word_length': 4.573684210526316, 'pattern_counts': {'":': 0, '<': 0, '<?xml version=': 0, '>': 0, 'https://': 0, 'lorem ipsum': 0, 'www.': 0, 'xml': 0}, 'pii_count': 0, 'substrings_counts': 0, 'word_list_counts': {'cursed_substrings.json': 0, 'profanity_word_list.json': 0, 'sexual_word_list.json': 0, 'zh_pornsignals.json': 0}}
In the Path of the Storms: Bayou La Batre, Coden, and the Alabama Coast (review)

Readers will find Frederick’s discussion of Wallace’s relationship with his family of considerable interest. George Wallace could be a good and caring man. Only God knew more names of people in Alabama than did Wallace, who spent hours each day calling to check on their mamas and papas. But he neglected his own family. Frederick sees Wallace as a “multi-dimensional” personality (pp. 183 and 185) and maybe in that finding is the key. Wallace could be anything to anyone depending on circumstance; moving from one personality dimension to another, he was true to none and therefore blind to his infidelity, personal and political. It also accounts for how a “total empath” became a “total narcissist,” but I am taking this where the author has not gone. Even so, Frederick has acquired and shares good insight into the personal dimensions of Wallace. I do find a few small faults with the book. The author purposefully keeps a tight focus on Alabama with the national scene as background. But there are places in the narrative where the swirl of national events put so much heat in Wallace’s lightning that more detail is needed. True, Wallace turned Birmingham-burning over to Al Lingo and Bull Connor in 1963, resulting in a brutal police riot, but Wallace used it to advantage in Montgomery and thus a couple of paragraphs on Birmingham would have helped. Another example is a Wallace speech (p. 157) where he refers to looting and rioting in American cities, but Frederick offers no context for the riots that began in August 1965 and ended three years later, an omission that will be disconcerting for first or general readers. The only other fault I find is also by author design. By using combination endnotes and by apparently trying not to clutter them (both virtues), a few important items go unsubstantiated. As but one example, on page 113, the author notes that Wallace “had strong support from many in the Montgomery Jewish community,” a serious and significant claim that should be supported in the endnote but is not.