“James Meredith: Breaking the Barrier,” edited by Kathleen Wickham. Yoknapatawpha Press, 162 pages; “We Believed We Were Immortal: Twelve Reporters Who Covered the 1962 Integration Crisis at Ole Miss,” by Kathleen Wickham, Yoknapatawpha Press, 246 pages; “Riot: Witness to Anger and Change,” by Edwin E. Meek, Edited by Lawrence Wells, Yoknapatawpha Press, 160 pages. As James Meredith was on his way to becoming the first African American to enroll at the University of Mississippi, a riot broke out on campus September 30, 1962. Schools had remained segregated in spite of the 1954 Supreme Court decision, and as William Faulkner had forecast, violence arrived when the federal government enforced integration. The plan was to murder Mr. Meredith, as Kathleen Wickham recounts in “We Believed We Were Immortal.”

The stories of a Black journalist and others showing how dangerous it was to report the story of Mr. Meredith’s heroic quest make “James Meredith: Breaking the Barrier” essential ancillary reading to “We Believed We Were Immortal,” along with Edwin Meek’s photographs in “Riot” that record what happened when an American university campus became a “war zone.” Carl Rollyson’s full review, “Examining the Integration Struggle, a Civil War Unto Itself.”

ALSO OF NOTE

“Acts of Service,” Lillian Fishman. Penguin Random House, 218 pages. “Acts of Service,” a debut novel from Lillian Fishman, is what you would get if Jane Austen found herself chronicling pretty young things in Brooklyn in 2022. Its ligaments are the traditional stuff of romance: relationships lost and found, troubles of the heart, selfish adoration. Its skin, however, is very much touched by the weather of the moment.

The protagonist of “Acts” is Eve, whom we find in a solid if uninspiring relationship with Romi, a pediatrician. Restlessness drives her into an erotic relationship with a couple, Nathan and Olivia. Eventually, she breaks up with Romi and gravitates towards Nathan, in the process meditating on the catty corners where desire and ideology meet. 

A novel frank and radical in its sexual politics, it nevertheless arrives at a surprising place, skeptical of the excesses of the MeToo movement and committed to a messy honesty rather than cultural orthodoxy. “Acts” is willing to question the premises of the world it limns, making it not only contemporary, but fresh. —A.R. Hoffman  

IN MEMORIAM

Joan Didion’s memorial service. A second queen was memorialized this week when “A Celebration of the Life of Joan Didion,” organized by Penguin Random House, was held at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, on 112th Street. It began with the Very Reverend Patrick Malloy speaking, and ended with Patti Smith singing. Didion was a writer who moonlighted as an icon. It was all there: her cigarette and sunglasses, her voice and her vibe, the beauty of her cheekbones and her prose, the way she appeared to hold the quintessence of both New York and Los Angeles. If the counterculture she chronicled was hot, she was cool — admired by the ink-stained New York writers and the beautiful denizens of the dream planet of Hollywood, treasured by the Rolling Stones. A.R. Hoffman’s full feature, “A Royal Goodbye for Joan Didion.”

Hilary Mantel at 70. The writer Hilary Mantel died too soon — she was only 70 — but she lived long enough to see a new Defender of the Faith at Westminster Abbey. That feels especially appropriate, as Mantel’s imaginative immersion in the Tudors will perennially link her to the first monarch who held that title, King Henry VIII. Across three novels — “Wolf Hall,” “Bring Up the Bodies,” and “The Mirror and the Light” — Mantel dilated on what many see as the formative moment in English history: Namely, the years when Henry VIII broke from Rome, founded the Church of England, and yes, wed six times. Mantel merged the historical novel with the psychological thriller and elevated both genres to the plane of literary artistry. A.R. Hoffman’s full feature, “Hilary Mantel, 70, Who Dusted English History With Archaic Eloquence.”