The Lampshade

Renowned writer Mark Jacobson's historical and philosophical journey after he finds a lampshade made of human skin in the aftermath of Katrina.

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The journey that takes Mark Jacobson to Weimar, Buchenwald, Yad Vashem, the Museum of natural history, and DNA labs began in Clarksdale, Mississippi in 1991, when he met Skip Henderson. About six months after Hurricane Katrina drowned the city, Henderson was at a rummage sale lookihg for a drum for Mardi Gras, when Dave, the guy selling the stuff on the sidewalk, said , 'Check out the lamp', and told Skip with certainty that it was made from the skins of Jews. Skip didn't believe anything Dave said, but he bought the lampshade for $35. But his wife wouldn't let him bring it in the house with Dave's story attached to it, true or not. It sat in the attic until he shipped it to a drum maker to look at-who'd never seen anything like it-and then Skip sent it to Mark - 'You're a journalist, you figure out what it is'. The Lampshadeis Mark's singular investigation not only into the truth of the thing itself, but of the idea of it, our understanding and reliance on history, on myths and reality, facts and evidence, on artifacts from the past, on evil.