Backroom Deals in Our Backyards: Book Talk and Signing

The Alabama Booksmith and Black Warrior Riverkeeper are pleased to host author Miranda Spivack (https://www.mirandaspivack.com/), a former Washington Post reporter and Fulbright scholar, talking about her Studs and Ida Terkel Prize-winning new book  Backroom Deals in Our Backyards: How Government Secrecy Harms Our Communities and the Local Heroes Fighting Back. The event will be Wednesday, May 14, 2025 – 4:00 PM at The Alabama Booksmith.

Miranda is a veteran reporter and editor who specializes in stories about government accountability and secrecy, and urban development. She tells the stories of “accidental activists,” including Mr. Ben Eaton and Miss Portia Shepherd from Uniontown, Alabama who confront problems in their communities, seek out information from their local, state and federal government and hit continuous information blockades. The book follows the Uniontown accidental activists and others confronting other issues around the country as they teach themselves how to overcome government secrecy and make positive change in their communities. The book also details the role that Black Warrior Riverkeeper played and continues to play in supporting residents of the community of Uniontown as they struggle for transparency and accountability from their local, state and federal governments.

From the publisher, The New Press:

Most Americans are likely to encounter the effects of government malfeasance or neglect close to home—from their governors, mayors, town councils, school boards, police, and prosecutors. In fact, deals shrouded in darkness are regularly made at the state and local levels, often the result of closed-door discussions between governments and industry without any scrutiny whatsoever from the public. Too often, as this groundbreaking new work of investigative reporting reveals, residents are intentionally kept on the outside, struggling to get information about significant issues affecting their communities—from car crashes and dirty drinking water, to failing safety gear—until the backroom deals are done and it’s too late to challenge them.

A work of riveting narrative nonfiction based on years of original reporting, Backroom Deals in Our Backyards tells the story of five “accidental activists”—people from across the United States who started questioning why their local and state governments didn’t protect them from issues facing their communities and why there was a frightening lack of transparency surrounding the way these issues were resolved. The secret deals, lies, and corruption they uncover shake their faith in government but move them to action.

Publishers Weekly, a leading trade publication for the book industry, gave the book its highest rating, saying, “The fad for privatization and outsourcing to contractors, Spivack persuasively demonstrates… is generating a ‘nexus [of] growing secrecy’ in local government, as kickbacks and preferential treatment become commonplace. The result is an enraging exposé of a nationwide culture of corruption.”