Below you will find a compilation of book reviews. Most were written and posted by me at GoodReads.com, with three notable exceptions. Each of these books was either written by a black author (but not all of them), prominently features black characters and issues pertinent to black life, or both. Although I am a selective general practitioner who frowns upon over-categorization of literature by arbitrary criteria, I see nothing wrong with grouping titles together per theme when discussing them. You certainly don't need to be black to read and enjoy these novels. In the end, readers are readers, books are books, stories are stories. But some titles need extra spotlight shed on them to help garner the appreciation they richly deserve. So I thought I would do my small part, because if you haven't read a single one of these books yet, you're most definitely missing out.
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark TwainMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
This book is especially near and dear to my heart. I don't suppose there are too many readers who are not already familiar with it. I wrote a blog post on Huck Finn in 2011 http://lineaday.blogspot.com/2011/01/... due to the decision to put out a new edition with all instances of "the N-word" omitted. The reason why this decision was made and the reason I was opposed, despite its good intent, says all that needs to be said about why this book is a classic. The brilliance of Twain's novel is that it shows how basically good people can be conditioned to have reprehensible attitudes and not even realize their wrong doing. We forgive Huck Finn's ignorant beliefs because we recognize that he is a good person at heart. This makes us wonder what sins by others in real life we should perhaps be more forgiving of, and which ones we ourselves may be unknowingly committing. How many of us would be willing to do what our conscience says is the right thing when society says such behavior will result in banishment to Hell?
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American Spy by Lauren WilkinsonMy rating: 3 of 5 stars
As the title makes plain, Wilkinson's book is about an American spy. The main character is Marie Mitchell. She works for the FBI which is sort of the Mitchell family business. Much is made of the fact that working as a spy for the US government is not typical employment for women, nor for African Americans, and most especially not for African American women. Yet Marie isn't even a trailblazer but instead following in the footsteps of her sister, not to mention them having a grandmother who didn't work for a government agency, but in passing for white did live an undercover lifestyle. Wilkinson's novel received a lot of buzz upon publication. And a major part of the buzz had to do with the fact that the setting was conventional for white characters but the book features African American leads. I suppose this aspect impresses other people more so than me. Does writing about a black woman in a white man's world mean that there will will be an extra layer of social commentary not present in your typical spy thriller? Yes it does. Was this extra layer something I appreciated? Yes it was. Does this make or break a novel for me? No it does not. In the end I'm here for the story and a fish out of water aspect is merely a component of the tale, not the hook, line and sinker. Regardless of how common or uncommon it is for characters of a particular background and make-up to be in a certain setting, what matters most is that I'm absorbed in the narrative and care about the characters and am anxious to learn how things will work out for them. All of that aside, I enjoyed American Spy. Lauren Wilkinson gifts us with a fine debut novel. It's not quite an exceptional one in my opinion. Considering the genre I would have liked a little more action and peril. The book begins and ends with Marie in situations where her life is at risk and tension runs high, but in between there is far more back story establishing and mundane activity than edge of your seat situations. So in the end, rather than American Spy standing apart from the average spy novel because its lead character is a black woman, it stood apart to me primarily because I wanted more thrills per page. But it was definitely an enjoyable read and Lauren Wilkinson is definitely an author to keep an eye on. To the best of my knowledge American Spy is not intended to be book #1 in a series, but I wouldn't mind seeing the fictional Marie Mitchell in follow up stories. And I'm now intrigued enough by my introduction to Thomas Sankara to venture beyond American Spy and Wikipedia to learn more about him.
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Black Betty by Walter MosleyMy rating: 3 of 5 stars
With Black Betty, Mosley delivers what you'd expect from an Easy Rawlins mystery if you came to it having already read a few others such as I had. The crime to be solved is made to seem convoluted but ultimately turns out to be relatively simple. Yet as with each book in this series it isn't really about the plot. It's about Easy's singular way of seeing and evaluating and dealing with the people he encounters along the way, his perspective on a period of time that seems both long ago and immediate. His character is further fleshed out with each novel, and going along for the ride with him on the particular case he's working on is always a pleasure. If you enjoy the writing of Raymond Chandler you'll probably enjoy that of Walter Mosley and vice versa, only with Mosley you get an added dose of social commentary, not to mention Easy's psychotically entertaining buddy, Mouse.
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Black Buck by Mateo AskaripourMy rating: 3 of 5 stars
Black Buck by Mateo Askaripour makes for a quirky, largely enjoyable read filled with social commentary on black/white race relations that veers from light-hearted to sharply critical. The style of prose goes down easily for readers who prefer accessible writing that rarely sends them to a dictionary or thesaurus to confirm what a word means. The plot follows a young Black man who is not living up to the potential that his scholastic accomplishments suggest is possible for him. Darren not only attended prestigious Bronx High School of Science but graduated valedictorian. Yet rather than moving on to higher education at an elite college, he works at a Starbucks on the ground floor of an office building. He is generally satisfied with his life despite his mother's insistence that he is cut out for far more. This is understandable since Darren and his mother live in a spacious home (along with a tenant downstairs) that his mother owns, he is the manager at Starbucks and fond of the staff, he hangs out with his best friend from early childhood on a regular basis, and he has a beautiful, supportive, soul mate girlfriend. So even though Darren can be considered to be an underachiever professionally, it's understandable why he is content with what he has without yearning for much more. But one day for no particular reason he decides to talk a customer into trying a different drink than his usual selection. The man is impressed with Darren's sales pitch, and he happens to be a sales manager at a start up company in the building. Rhett recruits Darren to become one of his sales people. Initial reluctance is eventually overcome and Darren decides to give it a shot. He and two other recruits go through what seems more like a fraternity hazing period than job training, and Darren (who is the only African American) is given the hardest time by a manager named Clyde. Each of the recruits are given nicknames, and from this point on Darren is known to most as Buck. Without going into too much detail and steering clear of spoiler territory, I'll sum up the rest of the plot in broad strokes. Buck becomes alienated from the people in his former life. His best friend Jason switches on a dime to becoming his enemy, he and Soraya break up, and his mother dies. It turns out that she had cancer and was keeping it secret from Darren, but not from their tenant who is like a surrogate grandfather (Darren's father passed away when he was a child). Darren/Buck is so furious that he was kept in the dark about his mother's condition that he throws the elderly man out of his home even though he has no other family to go to. Buck throws himself full bore into his new world. Being a great salesman at a company that is relentlessly thriving is all that matters. His work colleagues become his new family. Then comes the next narrative shift where Buck ends up becoming a mentor to other African Americans who want to better their situations by become super salespeople. It starts out with just one person, then two, and before you know it, along with his regular job he is running a worldwide but also top secret organization that cranks out success stories. The definition of success being getting hired to be a well paid salesperson in spite of not being White. Is A LOT of the plot of Black Buck over the top? Yes. Are complex social issues boiled down to utter simplicity? You betcha. Did my eyes roll over when plot machinations seemed rather implausible, such as a childhood friend becoming an enemy overnight simply because of a change in jobs? Most definitely. If you consider Black Buck to be in the category of parody/satire then you take much of it in with a large grain of salt. But is that what it is? I went to its Amazon page where there is a Q&A with the author. Askaripour is asked - "Did you set out to write it as a satire?". He replies: "The straight up answer is no. In fact, before people started telling me it was satirical, I treated it as an earnest piece of work. I’ve discovered that it’s both earnest and satirical—and I’ve had to learn how to hold both truths". In my opinion, if you read Black Buck strictly as an earnest piece of work then it is only moderately successful. If you decide that the author isn't really taking this plot fully serious (despite the fact that he confessed he was taking it quite seriously) but instead utilizing it to make pointed observations about society, you may hold this book in higher regard. Either way, it's a breezy read with nifty plot twists at the end that you may or may not see coming. I don't consider Black Buck to be strong, masterful writing - but it does make for easy enough reading. It has an initial lightness of tone with social commentary thrown in that grows darker but not overly intense as the story moves along. The characters serve their roles in moving the plot along more than becoming fully fleshed out people on the page. It's certainly a unique story that doesn't remind me much of anything I've read in the past, and originality (like readability) is easier said than done. I didn't love Black Buck but did find plenty in it to like a great deal, and so I do recommend it. As always, happy reading!
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Blind Man with a Pistol by Chester HimesMy rating: 3 of 5 stars
This novel by Chester Himes is basically an example of existentialism old school Harlem style. It may not be for everybody, certainly not for readers who want a clear cut answer at the end of their whodunnits, but I'm pretty sure Kafka and Camus would have approved of Blind Man with a Pistol. Who killed the pants-less man, why did that woman kill that guy, is any one person or organization behind the marches that quickly escalate into riots and looting? Questions such as these are asked, most are not answered definitively. Why not? Because Himes isn't really interested in providing a mystery to be solved. His goal is to make the point that most violence is like a blind man with a pistol, without aim, without strategy, without a point. Tragedies happen because people keep butting into each other. It's the way of the world. I especially liked the final chapter which stands apart from the rest of the book while also representing all that came before it. Personally I would have liked a little more cohesion to the plot, at least one case solved by deductive reasoning. That's a main reason one chooses to read a detective novel after all. But Coffin Ed Johnson and Grave Digger Jones are no ordinary detectives, or at least their situation as representatives of the law but also outsiders to it is unique for a crime novel. One could argue that it's actually a sociological and/or philosophical book masquerading as a cops and robbers tale. Coffin and Grave Digger walk the line between white and black worlds and sometimes you may wonder where their loyalty will lie, but the matter is never truly in doubt. They are honest men whose goal is to do their job as permitted to do it, and to keep alive. Sometimes this allows them to catch a few bad guys. Other times the bad guys have too much pull to be troubled much by the lowest guys in the legal totem pole. No matter. There's always another case to work on, another corpse on their beat, another reason why someone has to die, but never a particularly reasonable one. A blind man with a pistol doesn't really aim, he just points and fires and whoever gets hit goes down.
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The Bluest Eye by Toni MorrisonMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
This novel, by one of our finest writers, explores the thorny topic of what constitutes beauty, and how a woman is adversely affected when she does not fit the stereotypical profile. If society refuses to see your beauty, the logical conclusion is that you are ugly, and if so on the outside then probably on the inside as well. When you take such a false belief strongly to heart, at what point does the fault cease to belong exclusively to those who created and perpetuate the myth, and begin to fall on you for accepting it without questioning?
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A Brief History of Seven Killings by Marlon JamesMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
There is A LOT going on in this novel that I admittedly found to be a challenging read. Much of it takes place in Jamaica where perhaps you have visited on vacation, but this is certainly no "beach read". It is told from the vantage point of multiple characters, each of them telling their own story, each of the stories related to the build up to a failed attempt on the life of Bob Marley and the aftermath. It took quite a while for me to get through this book, and I confess to considering stopping once or twice. The use of Jamaican dialect for many of the characters was a small part of the challenge. A bigger part were the chapters (fortunately not too many of them) written in stream of consciousness never ending sentence format. Yet even as I struggled to keep my reading momentum going, there was something gripping about the narrative that had me hooked. The book eventually leaves Jamaica behind and moves to New York during the enchanting crack epidemic years. I found the latter portion easier reading, perhaps because I grew up in the Bronx and have familiarity with the setting. Before coming to the Bronx I lived on a Caribbean island, not Jamaica but St. Thomas. And of course I'm a huge Bob Marley fan because I can't understand how anyone could not be. So there are quite a few elements to this story that had me looking forward to reading it, and even though it was a tougher than anticipated read, I'm glad I stuck with it because Marlon James' talent is undeniable. Every one of the characters rings true during their moments as the focus of the story. The style in which it is written, feeling like a long series of somewhat connected scenes, almost like a short story collection rather than a novel, was an author choice that I know impressed some people (since it won a Booker Award) but probably put off a fair number of readers as well. This is not a book that you casually invest some time in. It's a major literary commitment with a generous pay off. Reading much of it while listening to Bob Marley's music is not a requirement, just my personal recommendation.
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Caucasia by Danzy SennaMy rating: 3 of 5 stars
A fine debut novel by a promising young author. This country has a very complicated relationship with race and Caucasia is one of the more intriguing examinations of this relationship that I've read to date. Most novels about race showcase how blacks feel about whites and vice versa. But for a biracial person a whole new layer of complexity is added to the equation, especially when the decision is made to pass as exclusively white. Caucasia is a fantastic book, one that readers who love action-filled plots can appreciate as will those looking for quieter introspection on social issues that were prominent in the 1970's setting of this novel and continue without full resolution to this day. It isn't easy to understand who you are from a cultural viewpoint when you happen to belong to both sides. Do the two halves negate each other, leaving a blank to be filled by the choices you make? Do they add up for a richer, fuller comprehension of the world than that possessed by those who see themselves strictly as either one or the other? Or do the halves merge to create a unique, borderline walking perspective?
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The Cutting Season by Attica LockeMy rating: 3 of 5 stars
I love a good mystery. I was intrigued by the mystery within a mystery concept of this book. I may have liked it even more if the narrative went back and forth following the two connected storylines, alternating between the present and slave days, only not via time travel the way Octavia Butler wonderfully did it in Kindred. The fact that Attica Locke sticks to a single setting is by no means a flaw, and like Octavia, Attica is also an excellent writer. That said, I can't say that I was blown away by this novel. I was thoroughly sucked in to the story, but emerged from it wishing there had been a little more. A little more of what I'm not quite sure. Plausibility perhaps. Things wrapped themselves up a bit too neatly and swiftly for my liking. My favorite type of mystery is the kind that's solved due to brilliant deductive reasoning rather than things (like drunken confessions) falling into one's lap. I especially like when I'm given the same clues and information as the character(s) trying to solve the crime, so I have at least a fighting chance at figuring it out on my own. Deciphering between misleading and critical details is my favorite part of reading a mystery if the author plays fair. I found The Cutting Season to be no better than average in my personal scale of judging a whodunnit, but the quality of writing and depth of characterization was excellent, so I'll certainly give other books by Attica Locke a shot and I would not hesitate to recommend this one. What's a 3-star book to me may be a 5-star book to you, and vice versa.
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Disappearing Acts by Terry McMillanMy rating: 3 of 5 stars
"Waiting to Exhale" received all of the acclaim and is the book that changed the face of publishing to a significant degree as the industry suddenly realized that African Americans read too, and sometimes even like to read about fictional characters who remind them of themselves. But in my opinion this is Ms. McMillan's strongest novel. It's easy to become immersed in her work, forgetting that you're reading and instead envisioning yourself as a fly on the wall eavedropping on lives that seem as real as those of your friends and neighbors.
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The Emperor of Ocean Park by Stephen L. CarterMy rating: 3 of 5 stars
The fact that this book explores university politics featuring east coast black upper-middle class characters made it stand out from the pack, but once you get over this facet (which I did pretty quickly), what you're left with is a well written and fairly intriguing mystery, more memorable than some I've read, less so than others. I suppose a book like this one is an antidote to the urban/hip hop/gangsta/etc. genre of "literature", not so much because it features black characters who are articulate, educated and well to do, but because it was written by someone who fits this description. Ultimately I could care less if the narrator of a novel I'm reading is a college professor or a drug dealing pimp. I only care that the story is absorbing and the characters ring true, and this book did a decent if not quite extraordinary job of accomplishing that feat.
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Freeman by Leonard Pitts Jr.My rating: 4 of 5 stars
FREEMAN is a fantastic book. Readers will highly empathize with the well developed characters. History buffs fascinated by the Civil War time period will be enthralled. Those who take great interest in this nation's troublesome history of race relations will be deeply drawn in, and on numerous occasions will shake their head at the realization that centuries old truths stubbornly remain valid to this day. Those in eternal search for bittersweet love stories should immediately add Freeman to their reading list. The only bone I had to pick with it is that in order for certain events to go the way the author intended them to, there were a couple instances of characters leaving incriminating evidence lying conveniently around, allowing for trails that otherwise would have gone cold to remain hot. I temporarily felt the presence of Leonard Pitts Jr. directing the narrative when this happened. "No way she doesn't toss that newspaper in the fire immediately" I may have said aloud at one point near the end of this riveting story. This is probably the only thing keeping me from going with a 5-star review, but please don't let it prevent you from following up on my recommendation to read this wonderful novel. From its first sentence to the last, it packs a powerful emotional punch. Bravo to a job well done.
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Ghana Must Go by Taiye SelasiMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
A virtuoso performance. Taiye Selasi is an author to reckon with. Her prose is a lullaby, taking its sweet time drawing us into the lives of the characters who populate Ghana Must Go. The narrative flits among members of a fractured family, each of them nursing their specific heartaches. What they share along with the ties of blood is abandonment, which leads to separate paths. A return to Africa to bid farewell to the man who left them is what brings them back together. Along the way we learn their secrets and sources of pain. Scattered moments throughout their lives fit together to form the image of a family, one that has been broken, but not irreparably. The arrival of death signals an ending, as well as the opportunity for new beginnings.
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The Girl Who Fell from the Sky by Heidi W. DurrowMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
This is a beautifully crafted tale by Heidi Durrow. It is about a girl who is haunted by events that shaped her destiny early on without her having much say in the matter. Events that are only vaguely remembered and yet continue to form the fabric of each passing day. A father who has vanished without a trace. A mother who left this world in the splashiest of ways, taking her own life along with those of her other children by leaping from the roof of a building. There is a witness and a survivor, and this book is the latter's story, as well as an examination of race. She is her father's black daughter and also her mother's white daughter. As result her racial identity is both and neither, dependent on how one sees her, or how she chooses to see herself on any given day. She is trapped in a past that won't let go, facing the future with much trepidation, because she already knows that if she takes a leap she will do so without wings. But that does not mean she won't survive, because along with her blackness and her whiteness and her status as one who has been taken in upon being abandoned, like a broken winged bird, she is also a proven survivor. The narrative moves back and forth in time and is told from multiple perspectives, revealing the back story to readers a layer at a time, in as random a manner as the markings of heredity. It is filled with tragedy and longing and loneliness and confusion. Good intentions and poor decisions do battle and cancel each other out. Yet beneath it all there is muted hope that wings may one day sprout.
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Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi AdichieMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
Extraordinary. We are in the presence of greatness with this author who has only just begun her journey. I could say more, so much more, but instead will end with what reviews of all truly great novels must state. READ THIS BOOK.
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Harlem Shuffle by Colson WhiteheadMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
I have read nearly all of Colson Whitehead's books. After reading his latest I believe there are only two or three titles in his backlist that I haven't gotten to. One thing that you know you'll get from his work is excellent, addictive writing. Whether it's a work of literary fiction, a book so full of personal details that it reads like a memoir, an actual memoir, a novel based on true life events, speculative in nature, or an unexpected dip into the genre of zombie lit (Zone One happens to be one of his books that I haven't read yet), you know you're getting quality prose from Mr. Whitehead. If you were a stranger to his work and Harlem Shuffle was the first book of his that you picked up, a glance at the cover copy where the most notable literary awards that have been given to him are listed would inform you that you're about to read something by a critic's darling. Harlem Shuffle did not disappoint. It was much more casual in tone than the last two Whitehead novels I read - his back to back Pulitzer Prize winners 'The Underground Railroad' and 'The Nickel Boys'. I suspect that another author will win the Pulitzer for Fiction next go around, but that's by no means a knock on Harlem Shuffle's merits. This novel follows the exploits of a man named Ray Carney throughout the 1960's. Ray is a Black man, he lives in Harlem of course (which is obvious because of the book's title, not because of the main character's race) and he is the son of a criminal. Ray steps away from his deceased father's legacy by becoming a legitimate businessman, owning a furniture store. He also spends time in his father's shadow due to illegal side business that comes into his shop from time to time. If someone brings a stolen item to Ray, he has the connections to find a buyer for it. Ray's ambitions mostly lie on the legitimate side of his dual existence. He wants to enlarge the size of his store. He wants to sell upscale merchandise from the "Whites Only" domain, even if many of his customers would need to purchase it on layaway. Ray wants to move to a more upscale neighborhood like Riverside Drive, and perhaps someday down the line, to the legendary Striver's Row of Harlem, NY. Ray Carney is a striver personified, never mind that his wife's parents look down on him because they come from older money while Ray is just one generation removed from hood life. Ray was able to get started on the straight and narrow after surprisingly finding money gained from his father's illegal activities in the truck inherited from his dad. But it doesn't matter how you got started so much as what you do once you get there. Among Ray's goals is entry into an exclusive club for Harlem's Black elite called The Dumas Club. His father-in-law belongs to it, which perhaps makes up for the fact that his flesh and blood father was a criminal who only would have gotten into The Dumas Club if he was robbing it. Ray's initial application to the club is rejected, never mind that the bribe money he paid to improve his chances was accepted. Being a striver, there's always another opportunity somewhere down the line, even if you have to get down and dirty to create that opportunity. The only thing that endangers Ray Carney's relentless forward progress is his cousin Freddie. They were raised like brothers, but since Freddie didn't luck into finding a bundle of cash like Ray did, Freddie makes no attempts at being an upstanding citizen who honestly earns a hard day's pay. He is always on the look-out for the next score along with his next drug high. And since he knows that his cousin has useful contacts when it comes to moving stolen goods, whenever he shows up it's usually to get Ray involved in criminal activity. Since Ray feels obligated to help out his cousin, and because he is his father's son as much as he is his own very different sort of man, Ray allows himself to be drawn in despite the jeopardy that it puts his conventional, above board lifestyle into. Even if inclined to walk away from an illicit opportunity, once dangerous individuals assume that you're involved based on your history, there isn't much difference between actively seeking out trouble and trouble looking for you. Ray Carney is basically a good man who keeps hustling out in the open as well as on the down low, striving to make his grass is always greener dreams come true, moving along with the changing times amid the Harlem shuffle. I highly recommend this novel. I have no idea what Colson Whitehead's next book will be about because like Ray Carney he keeps it moving, always searching for uncharted territory to explore. Some people have favorite writers because those authors consistently deliver a similar brand of literary treat over and over. Perhaps they stick to a particular genre, or if they stray a bit, they repeatedly examine particular tropes and write about the same types of people consistently. This is neither an attribute or a flaw. It just is. Colson Whitehead is one of MY favorite authors for the opposite reason. I never know what he's going to come up with next, but chances are that it won't feel like an echo of his previous books. It will be its own thing, and the common thread between the works of Colson Whitehead, from my least to my most favorite, is the excellence.
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Home by Toni MorrisonMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
– The divine Toni Morrison has been giving us shorter novels to enjoy lately. As with A Mercy, Home comes in at an unintimidating page count. But in this novel, in addition to brevity (it can easily be read over the course of a day if you have some spare time) we are also gifted with greater accessibility. Many non-book readers, and non literary fiction readers, steer clear of Toni Morrison because her exquisite use of language does not make for light reading. Her poetic verse can be challenging to those unable/unwilling to sit still and focus. If you have been avoiding her magnificent body of work for these reasons, avoid no more. Home is the book for you. Morrison’s prose, which remains as lush and eloquent as ever, is more straight forward here than in her previous books. Faithful fans will get their fill and I encourage new ones to jump on board. Just don’t expect a leisurely beach read. She has not gone quite that far. A synopsis comes easily, contained in one sentence. A veteran of the Korean War, haunted by blood soaked memories of his time there, returns to his hometown in Georgia to rescue his ailing sister. Along the way, Toni Morrison paints the backdrop of their lives. Cee has spent the majority of hers dependent on the kindness or lack of it displayed by those she encounters via circumstance. Frank comes back to save her life, but in order to claim and do something of worth with it, Cee realizes she must develop her own inner strength. Frank is wrestling too many demons to always reliably be her hero. Much has changed over the course of the years since Frank last set foot in the town where they were raised. Plenty remains more or less the same. Home is there to provide familiar comforts, even though our return to it is inevitably in the form of a different version of ourselves.
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Homegoing by Yaa GyasiMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
This novel is magnificent. A truly extraordinary achievement and an absolute pleasure to read. The plot is perfectly simple. A family tree gets split into two branches in Africa. Two sisters who never get to know each other are separated, one married off to a white slave trader and the other ending up as one of the slaves held literally beneath their feet. Subsequent chapters bounce back and forth between descendants of the two sisters. Each chapter gives us a slice in the life of a character. It picks up at what seems like a random spot in a person's life, gets us absorbed in that story, and then abruptly abandons it. The next chapter introduces us to a new character who falls in the other half of the family lineage. Reading Yaa Gyasi's wonderful novel is like watching a literary tennis match, our attention drawn to one side of the net and then pulled to the other and back and forth the narrative goes. We reach the end of each chapter with a tinge of regret because it was a riveting tale unto itself and we are naturally curious to follow it further. But we are equally anxious to dive into the next story from the other side of the net. Homegoing is a novel that very much has the feeling of an anthology of short stories. Each story is a sequel to the one that we read two chapters back, introducing us to the son or daughter of the father or mother we previously read about. Inevitably the two family/narrative lines will meet up, or so we hope and expect. Ultimately it is a single family and story divided up into various segments that contain varying amounts of joy and tragedy and hope. Homegoing is the story of the atrocities of the slave trade, and colonization, and segregation, and Jim Crow, and the Great Migration, and the war on drugs, and mass incarceration which is basically full circle back to slavery in modern society. It is a story of family, not just this particular fictional one but the real world African American family. Splintered into pieces that may never reconnect. Like the characters who populate this book, each of us have entirely different and unique stories. Yet we all share the same, single path. We are each other's brothers and sisters even if fated to never cross paths. Trace back far enough and we can find where the connection began. And if we cannot, we still know that the connection is out there somewhere, and so we should relate to and treat one another with this understanding. Decades ago Alex Haley gave us the masterful Roots and now Yaa Gyasi has given us the brilliant Homegoing. The latter is a work of pure fiction but feels like truth as the best of fiction does. Put this book immediately into the literary canon. Homegoing should be mandatory reading for all students of African American history, and Black Literature, and English Majors. If you're not a student in any of those classes then read it anyway because it's a wonderful novel that you will be glad to have read. It is a story for everyone as the best of fiction is, but will resonate particularly with the souls of black folk. Bravo, Yaa Gyasi. Bravo!
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Hunting in Harlem by Mat JohnsonMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
This was a fun read, in part because of the intriguing premise (former convict turned politician turned budding real estate titan hires some ex-cons to assist in his master plan to transform Harlem into a Black Utopia by ridding it of undesirable elements) and in larger part because of the strong writing of Mat Johnson. The book is populated by colorful characters described in smile to laugh out loud fashion. Two of the three ex-cons are larger than life, so Johnson puts the narrative in the hands of the third since he is the straightest arrow and thus the character readers are most likely to identify with. Snowden ended up in prison basically by unfortunate accident whereas his two colleagues earned their sentences through actions caused by their volatile personalities. One is a brute who operates in brawn over brains fashion, the other an intellectual firebug. The three men start off their new jobs by moving furniture but quickly graduate to creating additional vacancies by killing tenants who are deemed unworthy of the new Harlem they are bringing about. This brings on moral dilemmas for two of the three men, but by then they are in so deep that rather than turning back it makes more sense to keep swimming until they reach the other side, if in fact there is one. Do the ends justify the means when it comes to revitalizing a community? How about when it comes to becoming a Best Selling author? Johnson asks these questions with addictive prose in Hunting in Harlem. I highly recommend it.
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The Intuitionist by Colson WhiteheadMy rating: 3 of 5 stars
This book seemingly belongs to a byogone era when writers more frequently used elaborate metaphors to make allegorical points about the human condition. Novels such as Catch-22 or The Invisible Man come to mind. The setting is the past (all clues point to mid 20th century New York), yet since it's a version of the past that differs substantially from reality, it also has a futuristic science fiction feel. The somewhat peculiar premise elevates (pun intended) the elevator to mythical status, it's potential literally unlimited, the key to reaching a future that can scarcely be imagined. The alternate universe plot provides us with a thrill ride as the main character (an elevator inspector, first African American woman to attain such an esteemed position) is on the run, trying to prove her good name after apparently being set up to look inept for political reasons, danger lurking at every turn. The imagined politics revolve around one faction that believes the best way to inspect an elevator is by physically examining it, and another that conducts inspections (at a higher success rate) via powers of intuition. If this sounds weird to you that's because it is, and no matter how deeply you may get pulled into the story, it still doesn't really cease to be weird. As with most thrillers, much is not as it first appears to be. Friends turn out be be foes in disguise and those perceived as enemies are not necessarily so. Among the featured cast of characters are ruthless businessmen, ambitious at all costs politicians, university professors and students, and the mob. If you're looking for a novel with action and suspense in it, you'll find a fair share in The Intuitionist. Yet truth be told, the story is neither historical nor science fiction nor action adventure mystery crime noir spy novel. These are merely elements that are used to make a pointed commentary on race in America and our onwards and upwards no matter what culture. Along the way the reader learns plenty of real and fabricated things about elevators and what makes them go. This is a peculiar book, not for everyone, but certainly interesting and compelling while also full of details both personal and technical that keep the narrative at a sure and steady pace rather than racing towards resolution of the mystery. This makes perfect sense since the mystery isn't really the point of the story, just a vehicle used by the author to make his points.
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The Jigsaw Man by Nadine MathesonMy rating: 2 of 5 stars
I was kinda chomping at the bit to read this book. I have a thing that I'm neither proud nor ashamed of for serial killer narratives. This interest primarily covers the category of true crime, whether it's a non-fiction book or a documentary or a screen version featuring actors playing the parts of killer and victims and cops determined to break the case. I am astounded by the levels of evil that mankind is capable of. Some of us close our eyes at the carnage while others can't look away. I'm in the second group. When skilled fiction writers decide to create a serial killer inspired by the real-life monsters who dwell among us, consider me intrigued. The fact that The Jigsaw Man, along with having a very cool title also happens to be written by a Black woman, raised my curiosity level another notch. If there are many other serial killer novels written by Black women authors, I've somehow missed the memo. Having recently watched the Netflix series Dahmer and the movie The Good Nurse (the latter being about Charles Cullen), I was primed to read this Nadine Matheson novel. It seems that The Jigsaw Man is meant to be the first in a series of books featuring Inspector Anjelica Henley. I favor standalone books over titles from a series as a general rule, in part because I don't want to feel that I need to read multiple books to get the whole story. But my number one reading rule is that I have no rules. If something about a story is intriguing to me, I'm willing to give it a shot. Ultimately, unfortunately, I was underwhelmed by The Jigsaw Man. This despite the fact that it features not one but two dueling serial killers, one a copycat of the other who is behind bars for his crimes. That is until he manages to escape in order to track down the killer who has greatly annoyed him rather than flattering him with imitation. And he also wants to mess with Anjelica Henley some more after nearly killing her when she stopped his original murder spree. Angelica bears physical scars from the knife that Peter Olivier plunged into her stomach, and psychological scars from the ordeal. They combined to temporarily push her out of the police force, and upon her return to a special unit that specializes in tracking down the most heinous killers, she is immediately on the trail of an unknown killer who is leaving body parts from dismembered victims in multiple locations throughout town. Rather than finding one corpse at a time, law enforcement finds a leg here, an arm there, the head over there. It's grizzly stuff for sure. But to be truly captivating, a book needs to do more than roll out a series of horiffic murders. It needs to make me care about some of the characters, or at least one of them at minimum. It needs to not only make readers curious about whodunnit and how they dunnit and why they dunnit, but to immerse you in a world that feels real. I have read a few crime novels that disappointed me with their ending, yet I still considered them to be excellent reads because the journey from premise to conclusion was well laid out. With The Jigsaw Man, I frequently found turns of events to be implausible. Why is this killer being treated like royalty by prison guards? How can security around such a notorious criminal be so lax? Don't expect me to buy 'budget cuts' as the explanation. How is this guy able to overwhelm everyone he encounters? Does nobody else know how to fight or use a weapon to defend themselves - not even trained police officers? As for the psychology behind character motivation, I found it less than compelling. Serial killers may kill for no better reasons than evil and envy and ego, but Inspector Henley will be the recurring character over however many of these books get published, so she is the character who should feel layered with complexities and contradictions and nuanced with traits which make us empathize and sympathize with her. Perhaps she will grow on me if I give her several books in the series to win me over. I won't rule that out. But it's also possible that this will be the only Nadine Matheson book I'll ever read. Some authors get just one shot to win me over. I see from reviews online that plenty others liked The Jigsaw Man considerably more than I did. I won't tell you to steer clear of it. Every book isn't for every reader. That is part of the fascination of literature.
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John Henry Days by Colson WhiteheadMy rating: 3 of 5 stars
John Henry Days is written in an interesting narrative style. It shows us events through the lens of multiple characters, some repeatedly visited, others glimpsed just once or twice. A man named J. Sutter is the one most frequently observed, so I suppose he is technically the main character. But the true MC is a particular weekend in a particular town where an event possibly took place many years earlier, featuring a person who possibly existed. The event was a man defeating a machine at the feat of drilling a tunnel through mountain to allow the continuation of train tracks. The man of course, is John Henry. He is the stuff of legend regardless of whether he was ever one of flesh and blood, so a stamp has been created to commemorate him and a festival is taking place to mark the occasion. Colson Whitehead approaches this weekend from a wide variety of angles. Among the people involved in the build-up is a man researching the origins of a song written about John Henry, a man who collects railroad stamps, a woman who owns a hotel in the town where the festival is taking place, a man so obsessed with John Henry that he turned his home into a museum dedicated to him, that man's daughter, a journalist covering the events of the weekend, and John Henry himself. Hints are given throughout the book that just as the famous race ended in foretold tragedy, so will the commemoration. Whitehead has a beautiful way with words. If you're looking for a character driven novel where you'll deeply identify with and care for the protagonist, look elsewhere. If you're looking for a traditional beginning, middle, end style story rather than one which jumps back and forth in time and place, go find another book. But if you're interested in a distinctive approach to examination of a symbolic event, one that will be timely so long as people either resist, embrace, take advantage of, or become victims to the changes brought about by the march of progress, then I point you in the direction of John Henry Days. John took a last stand for human determination before it was replaced by mindless but more efficient machinery. Win or lose, his effort was in vain. He may as well have been battling death. We can postpone arrival of the Grim Reaper, but inevitably his date of arrival will be reached.
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Kindred by Octavia E. ButlerMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
An excellent novel that wonderfully blends science fiction with literary fiction. The science fiction aspect is pretty spare for although the concept of time travel is critical to the narrative, the author does not go into much detail about it. It simply happens for reasons that are left unexplained physically (Why bother explaining the impossible anyway? Doesn't make it any more plausible) but make sufficient sense for the reader to easily accept. The main character (Dana, a black woman recently wed to a white man in 1976) needs to keep an ancestor (who is white) from dying on a few separate occasions throughout the course of his life in order to sustain the family lineage that will eventually lead to her. She doesn't need to keep Rufus (who she first meets as a boy) alive to a ripe old age, just long enough for him impregnate the woman who will give birth to the earliest relative that Dana was aware of having. The extremely unfortunate thing for Dana is that the time she is repeatedly transported back to is America's period of mass production by slavery. She has no control over when she'll be called back in time. Rufus summons her subconsciously and perhaps consciously as he grows older whenever he is in grave danger. Dana is able to return to 1976 only when her own life is in immediate peril, something that usually but not always is beyond her control. The amount of time she spends on the plantation does not match the length of time that she is whisked away from her real life. Months in the past correspond to the passage of a couple hours in 1976 on one trip. On another trip, two weeks in the present correspond to three months in the past. So the connection is arbitrary, which is fine, for as I said this book isn't really about H.G. Wells style time travel. It's about the kind of time travel that affects all of us, because reality dictates that what happened in the past impacts our present and shapes our future. And as we learn more about our past and discover what had previously been unknown or misunderstood, our present understanding of the world adapts and generates a different future than the one we were previously headed towards. Bravo to Octavia E. Butler, a fine writer indeed.
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The Known World by Edward P. JonesMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
Bravo, Edward P. Jones - Bravo! Finished this masterpiece with about 20 minutes left to go in the year 2013. Looking forward to quite a few more great reads in 2014 but they'll need to be magnificent to share a bookshelf with this one. Reading The Known World put me one step closer to my goal of reading all of the Pulitzer Prize for fiction award winners - http://lineaday.blogspot.com/2009/03/...
Is the question "how (morally) could there have been black slave owners who were formerly slaves themselves?" a predecessor to "why is black on black crime so prevalent?" or "why do some black people (Michael Jackson being an especially well known example) seem to be trying to escape their blackness by cloaking it in what is commonly accepted as whiteness?" or "is the survival Darwin spoke of primarily achieved by looking out for yourself, even if the most effective method of ascension is using your own people to reach and remain at the top?"
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The Last Days of Ptolemy Grey by Walter MosleyMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
Simplicity is a powerful weapon, and often times less truly is more. The title of this book serves as partial synopsis. To flesh it out I will add that Ptolemy Grey is nearly 92 years of age and suffering from dementia that leaves him in a helpless state. He's at the sad stage where he won't even turn off his television or radio which simultaneously play 24/7 because he surely won't remember how to turn them back on. When the grandnephew who visits periodically to check on him is killed and a less good hearted relative replaces him, the final act of Ptolemy's life starts to undergo a transformation. He eventually finds himself with a new roommate who cleans up the pile of filth he lives in without messing with his sacred memories. In fact, his memory and faculties are restored by a doctor's experimental medicine. The medicine is sure to reduce the number of Ptolemy's remaining days but also makes them worth living, allowing him to put his affairs in order, to finish up plans that had been laid to rest, to administer justice as he sees fit, and to remember for awhile what it feels like to love and be loved. This is a beautiful story told by a master craftsman.
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A Lesson Before Dying by Ernest J. GainesMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
This may be the most heart breaking book it has ever been my sad pleasure to read. A young man is in the wrong place at the wrong time, and due to his poor decision making on this one ill fated occasion, ends up wrongfully accused of murder and condemned to death row. Set during a time when race relations were strained and tilted heavily in favor of privileged whites at the expense of struggling blacks who were looked down upon (in other words, a time much worse and yet insufficiently different from today), the best that his lawyer can think up as a defense is to compare the defendant to a dumb hog. When this fails to prevent Jefferson from being convicted and sentenced to the electric chair, his godmother calls upon local grade school teacher Grant Wiggins. What she asks of Grant is both simple and seemingly impossible. Jefferson cannot escape an unfair verdict in an unjust world. But instead of pitifully accepting designation as a brute animal, maybe he can find a measure of dignity in his final days, allowing him to take his final steps with head held high like a man. Grant is a cynic and less than a true believer in what we're taught about God and an awaiting Heaven. It takes the bullying of his aunt to make him accept the ultimate teaching assignment. He does his best. Jefferson does his best. Readers may do their best in the end not to cry. Many will surely fail.
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Loving Day by Mat JohnsonMy rating: 3 of 5 stars
Mat Johnson has a very funny (as in comical) way of looking at the world, perhaps because he grew up with a fair number of people looking at him funny (as in odd). Is he black, is he white? The box you decide to put a person into upon introduction, the label you instantly apply to their existence, shapes the dynamics of the relationship you will have with them. If you're not sure of which box to go with, which label to use, then what is there to guide your first impression? If you're not sure what someone else is, how do you go about being yourself around them? We live in an identity obsessed culture. What are you? Who am I? We are comforted when we can tell at a glance whether someone is a star bellied sneetch or a starless sneetch. But when the truth about someone cannot be discerned by a glance at them, then either they need to forcefully declare what they identity as being, or else we'll do it for them. Loving Day is filled with indelible characters; a line-up of humorous situations; an entertaining blend of reality and unreality; a considerable amount of wry, insightful prose; great compassion; and a handful of ghosts. It is about figuring out that regardless of how clearly our stars can be recognized (thanks for helping me out with this review, Dr. Seuss), it doesn't change the fact that we're all just people put here to find other people to love. Preferably people who will love us in return for whatever the hell we are.
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Lucy by Jamaica KincaidMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
Lucy is a teenage au pair from the West Indies who comes to an unnamed U.S. city (that appears to be New York) to work for a white family. She is self-absorbed, as are most nineteen-year-olds, presenting readers with a deeply personal, still maturing perspective on family, race, class, culture, preoccupation with sex, and the hazards of coming of age in a strange new world.
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The Man by Irving WallaceMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
I decided to read this book after learning of it when Collin Powell was thinking about running for President. Obtaining a copy proved to be a challenge in itself (this must have been before I was internet savvy), but after searching in a number of bookstores and libraries I finally found one in The Strand. With the book finally in my possession would it end up being worth my effort to obtain it? Fortunately it lived up to the hype. Now that Barack Obama is running for President this compelling novel has fondly been brought back to mind.
The first half of this review was written prior to Barack Obama's election to the highest office in the land. In case you haven't figured it out by now, this novel is a fictional account of the first black President. He isn't elected to the position, but rather, the president, vice president and some others ahead of him in line are killed and suddenly the United States finds itself having a black man in the oval office for the very first time, and that black man finds himself overwhelmed by an avalanche of responsibilities and pressure. But as one of my favorite expressions goes - "I may have been born yesterday but I stayed up all night". On the job training is often challenging, especially when it's the most difficult job in the world, especially when many are resentful of your ascendancy, condescending about your ability to be up to the task, or both. Then there's the matter of whether to run for re-election when his term is up.
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Matters of Convenience by Roy L. Pickering Jr.
Reviewed at Read in Colour
Can men write romance novels? That was my
initial thought when the author of Patches of Grey reached out to me asking for a review of his latest
work. I racked my brain trying to come up with any other romances that I've
read that have been written by men and couldn't. Do men not write romance? Are
they not capable of writing romance? Pickering answers all of those questions
in Matters of Convenience.
Audrey has everything going for her. She has a great job, good friends and impeccable taste. She’s been unlucky in love, but that’s okay because she’s focused on her career and a possible promotion. Her best friend, Marshall, provides the male shoulder she needs to lean on occasionally, so she has male company, it’s just platonic.
It’s undeniable that Marshall is in love with Audrey. They tried dating years ago, but where he felt flames, she barely felt a flicker. Marshall has comfortably settled into the friend zone while he watches Audrey date other men, believing that one day she’ll realize that he’s the only constant in her life and should be the man in her life.
James has played the fields for years. As his friends move into steady relationships, marriage and kids, he’s content to date several women. A BMW (black man working) in New York certainly has his pick of women and he takes full advantage of it.
When James meets Audrey, he’s immediately taken with her and theirs is almost a story book romance, but almost doesn’t count. Pickering could have taken the easy route and given readers their happily ever after and wrapped the story up with a nice bow, but nope. He explores what happens if there’s no happily ever after and it’s a bumpy but enjoyable ride.
Pickering’s characters are interesting and he uses them well. I found myself rooting for James and Audrey, of course, but I also wanted Marshall, Sarah and others to find their happy endings. A true sign of a good book and characters is that they stay with you after you’ve finished the book and these characters did. If Pickering decides to stay in the romance lane, I have a feeling he’ll do well.
Audrey has everything going for her. She has a great job, good friends and impeccable taste. She’s been unlucky in love, but that’s okay because she’s focused on her career and a possible promotion. Her best friend, Marshall, provides the male shoulder she needs to lean on occasionally, so she has male company, it’s just platonic.
It’s undeniable that Marshall is in love with Audrey. They tried dating years ago, but where he felt flames, she barely felt a flicker. Marshall has comfortably settled into the friend zone while he watches Audrey date other men, believing that one day she’ll realize that he’s the only constant in her life and should be the man in her life.
James has played the fields for years. As his friends move into steady relationships, marriage and kids, he’s content to date several women. A BMW (black man working) in New York certainly has his pick of women and he takes full advantage of it.
When James meets Audrey, he’s immediately taken with her and theirs is almost a story book romance, but almost doesn’t count. Pickering could have taken the easy route and given readers their happily ever after and wrapped the story up with a nice bow, but nope. He explores what happens if there’s no happily ever after and it’s a bumpy but enjoyable ride.
Pickering’s characters are interesting and he uses them well. I found myself rooting for James and Audrey, of course, but I also wanted Marshall, Sarah and others to find their happy endings. A true sign of a good book and characters is that they stay with you after you’ve finished the book and these characters did. If Pickering decides to stay in the romance lane, I have a feeling he’ll do well.
Middle Passage by Charles R. JohnsonMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
What a wonderful, powerful, thought provoking, surprising read. The first two attributes are on account of Charles Johnson's mastery of the written word. His prose grips the reader from first sentence and doesn't let go for a second. It goes by so quickly that I found myself wishing it had been padded to last another 50 pages or more. Why was it surpising? Well, I expected it to focus primarily on the horrific middle passage in which people were enslaved and transported in barbaric fashion from Africa to America. And the bulk of this book does in fact describe such a voyage. But before we get to it we are introduced to the protagonist, a fascinating character who is a freed slave that ends up on the ship basically by accident as he flees to avoid a forced marriage to his impatient girlfriend, a seemingly mild mannered lady who has taken matrimonial matters into her own hands in rather brutish fashion. Once he is aboard ship and particularly once it has monstrously taken on cargo, which includes not only members of an ancient African tribe but also their god, the narrative is so intense and perilous and chock full of life and death double dealing on the unpredictable high seas, that the early part of the novel is mostly forgotten. But without giving too much away, as Middle Passage reaches its conclusion suddenly we are back in the world of the original cast of characters. The physically battered protagonist is much changed mentally and emotionally due to his adventurous ordeal. But he has one last dangerous set of circumstances to navigate before he can be fully saved. Ironically, being saved means opting for a degree of monogamy and commitment that his avoidance of got him into so much trouble in the first place. Freedom has an entirely different definition to him from beginning of the story to the end. So yes, this book as expected was about the atrocities of the slave trade. But slavery is more of a backdrop than focus of the action packed tale. What it ultimately ends up being about is the lengths a man goes to live a carefree existence, and what he must go through to learn that caring for people other than himself is a far superior way to live.
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Milk in My Coffee by Eric Jerome DickeyMy rating: 3 of 5 stars
Milk in My Coffee deals with a modern day interracial relationship, the point of view alternating between a black man and white woman. Had the setting not been contemporary, it may have dealt with lynch mobs and featured life and death drama. Instead it's about trying to make a relationship work, which is difficult enough when skin tones match, extra challenging sometimes when they don't.
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The Mothers by Brit BennettMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
Exceptional novel. Brit Bennett writes with a steady hand as she immerses us into the minds and lives of three people. Nadia and Aubrey are the best of friends. Luke is the man they both love, at different times as well as simultaneously. He is the man who would have made a mother out of Nadia had they chosen to parent, and the one who eventually makes a wife and mother of Aubrey. He is the first love of both of them, but choices of course need to be made and not everybody can get a happily ever after out of such a situation. Or maybe not anyone. Luke's mother is the first lady of the church that plays a prominent role in the lives of all characters in this book. To varying degrees, her son and the women who love him succeed and fail at obtaining her approval. Nadia and Aubrey are both abandoned and motherless. Aubrey's mother chooses an awful man over being in the lives of her daughters. Yet Aubrey proves to be the character who is the best at maintaining loyalty, possessing an innocence that remains untouched no matter how ill she is treated. Nadia's mother chooses the release of death, and in so doing fills her daughter with undeserved guilt and a restless soul, forever on the look-out for whatever clues and remembrances may have been left behind. Both girls are haunted to womanhood by maternal abandonment. Nadia at least still has a father willing to be there for her, but the hurt caused by her mother's unexplained suicide pushes her away from those who love her. And so she is not a particularly dutiful daughter. And after both her child and relationship with Luke are aborted, relationships with the men who follow are destined to fail. But it is Nadia's betrayal of Aubrey that is at the heart of this novel. The mothers in Bennett's novel do the best they can, are hurt and betrayed by callous men and by each other, and some of them manage to persevere while others do not. I was very much absorbed by this book, in part because it examines central themes that I dive into in my novel Matters of Convenience, in much larger part because it is a wonderfully written book by an author who is off to an impressive start.
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Native Son by Richard WrightMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
Perhaps the most mesmerizing and powerful book ever written about race... perhaps the most mesmerizing and powerful book ever written about anything. Richard Wright created the gold standard when he gave us the story of Bigger Thomas, a young black man in the 1930s who, in a momentary state of panic, kills a young white woman without meaning to do so. He goes on the run and refuses to take accountability for actions that he feels were forced upon him by an unjust world. Rather than giving us a main character cruelly and unfairly treated on account of his skin color and therefore automatically garnering the reader's sympathy, Wright gives us one who does the unforgivable and therefore invites scorn. Rather than being repentant, Bigger grows increasingly outraged that he was made to become what it was not his natural destiny to be. Do you sympathize with or loathe Bigger Thomas, see him as a cold-hearted killer or helpless victim? The answer that you give to this question is revealing. The very best novels are not commentaries but mirrors. My opinion that the courtroom scene at the end drags on a bit too long and is basically a monologue rather than a continuation of the riveting plot is the only thing that keeps me from awarding this masterpiece 5 stars. Not only a great novel, but an important one.
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The Nickel Boys by Colson WhiteheadMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
The Nickel Boys vaults to the top as my favorite Colson Whitehead book. At the start we are introduced to a man who we learn spent a portion of his youth in a reform school that made no attempt at reforming or educating. The Nickel Academy was a brutal place for young white men to wind up, and for young, dispensable black men - it was pure hell. Especially when the black kid is a conscientious, diligent, dutiful son and model student planning to attend college. The last type of person who should end up in a reform school. But when he hitches a ride in the wrong car, one that has been stolen, Elwood is considered to be an accessory to the crime and his promising future is derailed. Memories of Nickel haunt the men who served time there, and buried along with secrets are bones that once held up the bodies of those who failed to walk out at the end of their internment. In the Jim Crow south black people had very few rights in a society that invited cruelties against them. As bad as it is on the outside, black boys in a place like Nickel, most of them lacking in concerned family members waiting at home for them, can be tortured to death and made to vanish without a trace. Those who make it out are mostly broken men. But there are certain individuals who remain free of subjugation even while imprisoned. And once release from bondage is achieved, such men not only survive but thrive. No matter that they are forever scarred, because a place like Nickel always leaves its marks. Whatever doesn't kill you can destroy mind, body and soul in various ways, unless you are the type of person who is strong enough to lift the heaviest of burdens and rise above enslaving circumstances and shape a life worth living when freedom is at hand. The type of person who understands even in the midst of the grittiest of circumstances, the value of shimmering hope. Whitehead's prose is skillfully rendered and makes for easy to digest reading. He paints a bleak landscape with his words in telling a tale drenched in sorrows. This review will remain spoiler free, though I must add that I did not see the brilliant ending coming. It is one that causes you to re-evaluate all that came before it.
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NW by Zadie SmithMy rating: 3 of 5 stars
Carrying this book around I learned that just about everyone has read and really loved White Teeth, Zadie Smith's debut novel. Some of her faithful devotees may be less enamored with NW. Not that it isn't skillfully written. But the very fragmented style Smith chose to present it in probably will not be everybody's cup of tea. The choppy format did not take away from my ability to again perceive that Smith is an exceptional talent, but this book's flow took some getting accustomed to for me personally. NW chronicles the lives of two women who grew up in the same neighborhood and are friends from childhood. They both go on to get married and keep secrets from their husbands. To say much more about the plot would bring me into spoiler territory, so I'll leave summarizing to others who are better at it. Instead I'll say that I liked if didn't quite love this book, and that I do recommend it, even if you read it only to end up saying that you preferred White Teeth. There is only room for one as your favorite, but plenty of room to fill on the bookshelf of your life.
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Patches of Grey by Roy L. Pickering Jr.
Reviewed by Dianne Rosena Jones
When I finished reading the first chapter I
knew this Author was more than just someone who wanted to write. Roy L.
Pickering, Jr. is a Storyteller. “Patches
of Grey” is a deeply complex tale with authentic characters whose
personalities are strong and well developed. The story surrounds the Johnson
family and each member’s life is examined from their own perspective. Their
individual struggles are woven together to illustrate a compelling tale of how
each of them chooses to deal with adversity.
Worlds collide within the pages of this book. Thoughts are challenged. Dreams are shattered. Hearts are broken. The author explores what shattered dreams do to the Soul’s of Men. From the man who seemed to have it all, to the man who never achieved his goals, and the one who fights to keep hope alive, and the fall of one who barely got to dream at all.
“Patches of Grey” takes the reader on a remarkable journey into the depths of despair with the Johnson family as each of them battle to overcome their reality, which threatens to overwhelm them to the point of no return. “Patches” has depth, meaning, and purpose with powerful themes, some subtle and others blatantly obvious. Mr. Pickering writes with a voice strong enough to one day propel him into the category with the likes of other great Novelists such as: Richard Wright [Native Son, Black Boy], Ralph Ellison [Invisible Man], and John A. Williams [The Man Who Cried I AM].
Many aspiring writers could learn much about how to develop a character by studying the members of the Johnson family. By the end of the book, there is no gap in the fabric of the man’s mind, heart, or spirit that the author has not uncovered. I closed the book having experienced that turbulent year in the life of this family.
I’m going to place Mr. Pickering’s book “Patches of Grey” on my book shelf right next to the African-American Greats that had paved the way in Literature, and left the path clear and plain for him to follow in their footsteps.
Worlds collide within the pages of this book. Thoughts are challenged. Dreams are shattered. Hearts are broken. The author explores what shattered dreams do to the Soul’s of Men. From the man who seemed to have it all, to the man who never achieved his goals, and the one who fights to keep hope alive, and the fall of one who barely got to dream at all.
“Patches of Grey” takes the reader on a remarkable journey into the depths of despair with the Johnson family as each of them battle to overcome their reality, which threatens to overwhelm them to the point of no return. “Patches” has depth, meaning, and purpose with powerful themes, some subtle and others blatantly obvious. Mr. Pickering writes with a voice strong enough to one day propel him into the category with the likes of other great Novelists such as: Richard Wright [Native Son, Black Boy], Ralph Ellison [Invisible Man], and John A. Williams [The Man Who Cried I AM].
Many aspiring writers could learn much about how to develop a character by studying the members of the Johnson family. By the end of the book, there is no gap in the fabric of the man’s mind, heart, or spirit that the author has not uncovered. I closed the book having experienced that turbulent year in the life of this family.
I’m going to place Mr. Pickering’s book “Patches of Grey” on my book shelf right next to the African-American Greats that had paved the way in Literature, and left the path clear and plain for him to follow in their footsteps.
Pleasantville by Attica Locke
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
Attica Locke's prose goes down nice and easy, and her well etched characters draw you into the mysteries they inhabit. This is the second one of Locke's novels that I've read. I look forward to the third and beyond, regardless of whether she brings us back to the same cast of main characters or introduces us to brand new ones.
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The Polished Hoe by Austin ClarkeMy rating: 3 of 5 stars
The pace of the narrative mirrors that of the characters it is about - island time. If you're looking for brain candy or twists and turns every few pages that will keep you on the edge or your seat and cause you to speed through the reading process in a couple hours, this isn't the book for you. But it's pretty good if not quite great and I'd definitely recommend this novel to fans of well written literary fiction.
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Pym by Mat JohnsonMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
Interesting book that made for a quick read. It is filled with Mat Johson's trademark humor regardless of the seriousness of topic at hand. The plot revolves around a recently fired African American Literature professor. Why was he fired? Because his primary focus was on examining a novel by Edgar Allan Poe, the only full length novel written by the brilliant but definitely not African American author. The name of the book is The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket. I had never heard of Poe's lone novel before reading Johnson's Pym. The narrator studies and teaches this book to his detriment because he believes it holds the key to understanding White-Black race relations. After being fired, the professor and his also unemployed best friend (who has his own obsession with a painter of landscapes, specifically, with finding the precise physical vantage point that each of his paintings are based on) end up on a quest that takes them along with the narrator's cousin and ex-girlfriend and her current husband among others to Antarctica. It is on this frozen terrain that they discover a lost race of creatures representing Whiteness. This means its opposite, a tropical island representing Blackness that Poe also wrote about in his novel, is possibly out there as well. When the world as we know it seemingly comes to an end, the narrator and his motley crew perhaps being the lone survivors of Armageddon only to have become slaves of the primitive creatures in Antarctica, the search is on for whatever paradises (whether man-made or otherwise) may still exist. That's about as well as I can describe Pym's quirky plot. Best to read this enjoyable book for yourself.
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Ruby by Cynthia BondMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
This is a devastating book, a relentless series of gut punches that batter the soul. The title character is put through a hell that the most evil of people would not wish upon their greatest enemy. What somehow fails to kill Ruby does manage to annihilate her spirit and make her incapable of respecting, much less loving herself. If you can't self love then another person has little chance of earning it. But despite the many horrors witnessed and cruelties visited upon Ruby, she has just enough strength to care for her spiritual children while living a shell of a life perched on the edge of madness. And this keeps her going. Her body is used and abused at the whim of men who take advantage because there is no resistance. But one man is different - a man whose love for Ruby gets him to stand up for her and himself rather than mutely accepting what is handed to him. Ephram shows Ruby that in spite of all that has been done to her and by her, she can still be viewed with tenderness, adoration even. But the world is harsh, atrocities abundant, the devil ever present, people judgmental when not being indifferent. So love is not a big enough miracle to save Ruby. Sometimes the only person who can save you is the one found in the mirror. This is not a gentle read, but it is a fantastic one.
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Sag Harbor by Colson WhiteheadMy rating: 3 of 5 stars
Colson Whitehead is a wonderful writer. Although I wasn't a Sag Harbor summer kid myself, the author and I are about the same age so much of his reminiscing about his experiences as a 15 year old stirred similar memories I possess. Sag Harbor is a work of fiction, not a memoir, but it reads as much like the latter than as a novel, and no doubt it was largely inspired by the author's youthful days. Not a whole lot happens in Sag Harbor, basically a group of teenagers kill the abundance of time they have on hand, and I know plenty of readers would have a problem with this. I wouldn't have minded if the story had been more eventful, might have awarded it an extra star in this review if it was. After all, if you're writing a memoir about a period of time when nothing particularly earth shattering took place but it nonetheless was vivid in your thoughts because it was a critical period of your life, then you need to be true to what did and didn't happen. But if you're writing a novel, certainly you can feel free to throw in a little drama. Whitehead resists this temptation and simply gives us a first person tale about an introspective person on a summer vacation somewhere roughly in between the end of his childhood and beginning of his manhood. What does Benji think about as he makes his transition to becoming Ben? For the most part he reflects on his days up to that point for he knows they will soon be coming to an end, and he wonders what the future will hold for him. He holds memories that are both crystal clear and cloudy. As for his insight into tomorrow, like the rest of us he can only guess a little and hope a lot.
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Salvage the Bones by Jesmyn WardMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
Novelists like Jesmyn Ward don't come along very often. Only truly special writers can slip readers beneath the skin of a character, make them feel as if they are experiencing the events happening on page first hand. Reading Salvage the Bones one is drawn into the oppressive summer heat of Louisiana; aches with helpless desire; is burdened by a stifling sense of loss; vicariously goes through youthful yearning to be loved, even if only as much as a treasured pet. Prior to the arrival of Hurricane Katrina, the pace of the narrative is slow and steady. We wait for the inevitable devastation to arrive, knowing far more about what is to come than the family we're observing up close. A motherless girl lets the local boys take what they please from her until she meets one from who she wants something back. She is a lone woman in a world of men, and it is through her eyes that we pass idle time waiting, watching, remembering, wishing for what is plain will not be, settling for whatever she is able to grab hold of. This girl does not get placed on a pedestal like her brother's prized dog, but like China she is able to nurture when called upon, ready to fight tooth and nail for survival when necessary. Read this book. Then join me in the wait for Jesmyn Ward's next one.
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The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk KiddMy rating: 3 of 5 stars
This infectious, sentimental book is primarily a coming-of-age story that focuses on mother-daughter relationships and dealing with the early loss of a loved one. But since it's set in the South in the 1960's when African Americans first received the right to vote, and it is a group of black women whom the lead character comes to stay with and learn valuable life lessons from, race also plays a prominent role in the plot. For readers not up to grappling with literary works as heavy as Bluest Eye or Native Son, a novel such as this one can serve as a primer. The message goes down easily with Monk's easily digestible style of writing, but that makes it no less important and may encourage readers to later check out novels with more substantial things to say about the ways we treat each other. Aside from matters of race, this book has insightful things to say about prematurely ended mother-daughter relationships that has endeared it to many.
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The Sellout by Paul BeattyMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
The Sellout is a tricky book to review. Is it brilliant satire or biting social commentary delivered with excessively over the top weirdness? I can easily see why one might lean one way or the other. It wasn't until after reading this book that I read the author's bio and learned that he started out as a spoken word poet who launched his career by killing it at Nuyorican Poets Cafe. This came as no surprise given the style of Beatty's prose. Nearly every sentence is a rambling, poetic, rapid fire joke with multiple punch lines delivered. I have never listened to an audio book, only read ink on paper novels. But The Sellout is definitely a novel that seems written to be listened to as much if not more than it was written to be read silently to yourself. The wacky plot involves a black man who was home schooled by his social scientist father, with every lesson being about racial identity. After his father is murdered by cops, the son inherits the family farm along with acquiring settlement money. Not that they live in farm country. Where they live is in a California town that has literally been erased from the map. So in addition to providing his neighbors with incredible fruit, stellar weed, and crisis counseling in times of mental emergencies, the narrator is also on a mission to bring the town back into existence. Or rather, into recognition that it's still there. He is friends with the last living cast member of the Little Rascals, a man named Hominy who voluntarily insists on being the narrator's slave. Yes you read that right, and no I don't have an explanation for motive beyond this book is satirical with every line meant to be taken with a grain of salt. Or perhaps a boulder of salt. In addition to being a slave owner, the narrator also decides to attempt to bring racial segregation back to their town one location at a time, starting with a city bus. If what I'm describing sounds bizarre, you've got the right idea. Beatty hits readers with every cultural reference under the sun along the way. The Sellout seemed to me less of a story than someone showing off how witty he can be on the topic of our national obsession with race. There is a bit of a romantic subplot involving the driver of the aforementioned bus that's barely worth mentioning, except to make it clear in this review that while throwing everything out there, Beatty did not forget the kitchen sink. I enjoyed this book, yet reached a point where I was mainly reading to accomplish the feat of finishing what had been started. I suppose I personally prefer my satire in shorter doses. I suppose that as much as I love expertly delivered, thought provoking spoken word poetry, I look forward to a different form of artistic experience when reading a novel. I'm going to round up from the 3.5 stars that goodreads won't allow me to give and select 4 stars as my rating while fully appreciating why it would be a 5 star read to others, and why awards such as the Man Booker Prize would be bestowed upon it. I don't know if I'll read another Paul Beatty book, but I'd love to listen to him read from his work or just hear him talk about whatever comes to mind.
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Silver Sparrow by Tayari JonesMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
Silver Sparrow is an excellent novel written in a sure handed manner by a very talented author. It tells the tale of a bigamist, a man living two separate lives, one out in the open and the other in its shadow. His first family is the result of youthful reckless behavior and following the directions of his mother to make things right. Family number two is formed by falling in love as a grown man, but perhaps one who has not matured very much. After all, a mark of adulthood is understanding you need to make choices, that holding onto one thing often comes at the expense of letting go of another, that if you don't make those choices to your best advantage eventually they will be made for you without allowing you much say in how things work out. This man is at the center of two families but the story focuses on the women in his life - his wives of unequal billing and primarily their daughters who had no say in how their dangerously connected families came about. Over the course of the narrative the half sisters learn that family is not so much a matter of blood, as one of choice of loyalty.
In addition to enjoying Silver Sparrow as a reader I found it to be a particularly interesting read because it addresses matters near and dear to my heart, issues I've examined in short stories, in my first novel Patches of Grey, and in my second yet to be published book, Matters of Convenience.
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The Star Side of Bird Hill by Naomi JacksonMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
Home is more than where you live. It is where you are loved. It is the place you feel safe, where your fondest memories are created and stored. Home plays a major role in the creation of your identity. If another place was home, you would be a different version of yourself. The Star Side of Bird Hill is about two sisters, one a preteen and the other a little closer to the verge of womanhood, who are sent from Brooklyn to Barbados to spend a summer with their grandmother. This temporary arrangement is given permanence when their severely depressed mother kills herself. With their father out of the picture, having no parents in their lives means that home is suddenly redefined. But Bird Hill is not what they know nor what they have chosen. It is an idyllic prison cell. The children of Bird Hill are not their true friends. Their grandmother is an unbending woman with strange ways, not the adored woman who raised them. This is not to say that Brooklyn was paradise, for that was where their mother had been vanishing before their eyes by withdrawing into herself as depression took hold. Brooklyn is where their father abandoned them. Barbados is where he makes a surprise reappearance that is difficult to trust. Who they can have faith in is their stalwart grandmother, and she is rooted in an island they knew little of up until now. So Bird Hill is where they will finish becoming the women they are meant to be. Memories happy and sad, at least for the time being, must stay behind in Brooklyn. The new shape of home, including loved ones they have gained and those who have been lost, must be accepted no matter how reluctantly. Passage of time will construct that acceptance. This is a fine debut novel by Naomi Jackson, an author to keep an eye on.
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The Taste of Salt by Martha SouthgateMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
The Taste of Salt chronicles the effects of alcoholism on an African American family. Liquor destroys a marriage that begins with much promise, its grip not loosening on the father until he has been sent off to make a new life for himself. Their son Tick becomes an alcoholic as well, remaining sober for long enough stretches to set up an enviable situation working on the training staff for a NBA team, but repeatedly losing his battle to take things "one day at a time" and having to start all over again. His sister, like their mother, is not cursed with alcoholism but with having alcoholics as her closest blood ties. Josie copes with the pain and embarrassment by being away from her family. She has a dream fulfilled job as a scientist who studies her beloved ocean far removed from Ohio where her parents and brother reside, and she is married to a good man who treats her with respect and tenderness. In this setting it seems she has escaped the hurt that her parents and brother must endure. But Josie has self destructive tendencies also. She may not need a drink to make it through the day, but her inability to reach true intimacy with the man who has opened his heart completely to her wreaks its own brand of havoc. To survive their separate yet connected hurts, Josie and her brother and parents need to forgive each other and themselves. In clean and easy to read prose, Martha Southgate shows us that not everybody in this often sad world is strong enough to do that.
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Things Fall Apart by Chinua AchebeMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
I have been meaning to get around to this book for years. It did not disappoint. Things Fall Apart is the story of an African man named Okonkwo. He is an important man in his tribe and lives the way he understands a man's life is meant to be lived. To compensate for the weaknesses of his father his main purpose is to demonstrate strength. In order to achieve a greater degree of success he figures he must be more ambitious, aggressive, and domineering. And this is what he pulls off. So long as his place is firmly established in a world that is familiar to him, one in which he understands the rules and what it takes to excel, all is well. But after Christian missionaries arrive in the village we learn that this is not the story of a man, but rather, the chronicle of a way of life that is destined to fall. Okonkwo's gods fail to measure up against the Christian God mainly because ancient ways are always overwhelmed by the march of modernity. The gun is mightier than the machete, science outmatches superstition, and what on the surface appears to be a more compassionate way of life triumphs over barbarism because biblical cruelty is more cleverly disguised. A fascinating novel indeed.
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To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper LeeMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
A classic that needs no introduction. A white lawyer defends a black man wrongfully accused of raping a white woman in the 1930's South. Readers see it all unfold through the eyes of his young daughter as she witnesses the worst and best that people are capable of. It's impossible not to be thoroughly absorbed by this story and admire its message that the quest for justice is always worth embarking on, regardless of the odds or possible consequences.
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TUMBLING by Diane McKinney-WhetstoneMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
This story of a uniquely formed African American family that takes place in Philadelphia during the 40's and 50's is a deeply moving one. The marriage of Herbie and Noon is made vulnerable by the fact that it is not consummated due to a dark secret in Noon's past. She escapes her demons through church and Herbie does likewise in nightclubs and in the arms of another woman, when she's around and when she'll have him, a woman named Ethel who is everything that his wife is not. Nevertheless Herbie and Noon come to raise two daughters just months apart in age who are left on their doorstep, Fannie as an infant and Liz later on at the age of 5. There are multiple mysteries to unravel from first page to last, many struggles for the family to endure mostly because of the secrets and lies and maintained silences between them. The reader comes to feel strongly for each of the vividly and skillfully etched main characters, rooting for them to find light at the end of their individual tunnels, pulling for them to remain together when fate seems determined to tear their world apart. What a wonderful novel from such a talented writer.
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Twelve Years a Slave by Solomon NorthupMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
I suspect that the film adaptation, which I look forward to seeing after keeping a promise to myself to read the book first, will be more melodramatic and pull on heartstrings to greater effect and purpose than Solomon Northup's telling of his life story. Northup writes in somewhat stilted prose, his style academic rather than evocative like great novels or movies. He is not trying to draw out our tears. He is not attempting with every stroke of the pen to stir up emotions. Northup is simply telling us like it was - straight no chaser. No need to exaggerate the brutality or the tragedy, no reason to willfully demonize people whose monstrous acts and barbaric attitudes speak for themselves. Is the reader outraged, astounded that people could casually treat others in such a manner? Only if the reader has a soul. Northup doesn't use his words to move us the way his violin playing moved people. He is both impartial reporter and the subject of his piece of journalism. He doesn't ask us to feel sorry for him, or to hate his oppressors. What he does is recount what it was like for a man to suddenly find himself in bondage and servitude, endure it for over a decade, and then miraculously find himself free again with a most amazing and devastating tale to tell. He tells the truth in as unbiased a manner as possible and allows us judge it for ourselves. How did any man ever convince himself that it was okay to treat another this way? How did they ignore the humanity they surely saw in the brethren they stole from another continent? How was a single one of them able to look in a mirror? Twelve Years a Slave asks these questions but is unable to answer them, nor does it bother to try. Nothing can adequately answer them. The mystery of such heartlessness has not revealed itself over a couple hundred years. This is what our country was founded on, inalienable rights unevenly dispersed with extreme prejudice. This is what we need to atone for and move forward from. This is the stain that will never fade. Yet quite tellingly, those 12 years are not what made Solomon the extraordinary man that he was. Those 12 years happened to him but did not become him. Otherwise he probably would not have been able to write his book. The past brought us to this present, but it need not define any of us. In even the most suffocating circumstances, we have the freedom to do that for ourselves.
The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
This novel is a grand literary achievement, well deserving of its accolades and the Pulitzer Prize. It is a story of American slavery, and of daring to dream of freedom. It depicts the shackles that physically held people in bondage as well as mentally chaining them to the inescapable past. Slaves who did not have their spirits broken by enforced servitude had one chance to claim a life worth living. They could run and hope to make it to the underground railroad. Colson Whitehead makes the interesting choice of depicting it as an actual railroad running beneath the ground, giving the story somewhat of a science fiction feel. But for the most part the narrative is a gritty, realistic one. A woman named Cora is at its center. She escapes bondage much as her mother, who was never heard from again, did before her. Freedom is fleeting. Just as Cora has grown comfortable and believes she has found a permanent place for herself, she ends up imprisoned in an attic, hiding until found and recaptured. Once again she escapes and this time she finds a utopia, a community of black people living prosperously and independently. But paradise found is only a sweet respite until it is lost. A slave catcher named Ridgeway relentlessly pursues Cora even after the man who hired him to find her has died. His determination to return Cora to bondage is a match for her desire to live on her own terms rather than those dictated by a barbaric society. Yet he can hold Cora captive to no greater degree than one can grasp the wind. Once again she is on the run, riding the subterranean rails towards a future that is beyond the reach of slavery. The story is told at a pulse quickening pace, with quiet moments interspersed that resemble freedom and present the possibility of Cora choosing a lifelong home, until she finds herself being hunted again. We hope for Cora's fate to be merciful, knowing that the railroad's journey to a better tomorrow is mighty long, continuing in certain ways to this very day.
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The Warmest December by Bernice L. McFaddenMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
Violent alcoholics beget violent alcoholics beget... Pretty much everybody in this beautifully written novel is in agony. They are each perpetrators and victims, the tormentors and the ones suffering from a brutal disease. The cycle appears to be endless, but Kenzie is fighting to break the pattern. This novel, which is told from her point of view, is filled with unfathomable cruelty that it seems nobody would be foolish enough to stick around and take. Surely fleeing for their lives is an option. But instead of running from barbaric cruelty they are each running from their own demons. These demons take on liquid form and exist in bottles obtained from bars and liquor stores. The reader pities them for their hopelessness, urges those being bullied to take a hint and act out of self preservation rather than inexplicable loyalty. But neither Kenzie nor her brother nor her mother listen to the reader, or to friends, or to each other, or to concerned strangers such as policemen sometimes called to the scene of the crime. The jaded officers know in advance that their advice will be ignored, for the story is a sadly common one. The thing about a cycle is that it's extremely difficult to locate an exit point. No matter where you are it looks the same. There are glimpses of small hope, moments of grace, occasions that provide a view of genuine happiness, but eventually the moment to suffer comes back around. As long as Kenzie is consumed with understandable hate, she suffers and requires destructive medication to deal with the pain. She cannot escape by running, but rather, by confronting and figuring out how to forgive. Easier said than done.
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The Water Dancer by Ta-Nehisi CoatesMy rating: 3 of 5 stars
I enjoyed this well written book, the first novel by esteemed writer Ta-Nehisi Coates. It received a great deal of hype including the valuable OPRAH seal of approval. So I went in thinking it would blow me away. Instead I ended up liking but not quite loving it. 3-1/2 stars out of 5. Comparisons to The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead were inevitable since they both tackle the same subject matter. Both books stray from the reality of what the underground railroad was in the telling of their respective tales. In Whitehead's case he made it a literal train traveling underground, so basically the subway. As for Coates, he came up with the concept of conduction which is where certain people (such as Harriet Tubman who is a character in The Water Dancer) possess the mystical power to transport themselves and others along with them over great distances rather than needing to travel in pedestrian fashion by horse or foot. It's kind of bordering on Harry Potter territory. The Water Dancer delves into the life of a man named Hiram Walker who is a slave in possession of the power of conduction, although for much of the narrative he doesn't have full mastery of it or control over when it will happen. But even though he isn't a conduction expert yet, his talent makes the operators of the Underground Railroad greatly desirous of his services. Unlike Hiram and Harriet "Moses" Tubman, most slave escapes are orchestrated by people without magical powers. These ordinary escapes involve strategy, forgery, and following paths that lead to various locations of shelter by abolitionists when perilous journeys from bondage to safe haven in the northern half of the US are undertaken. Hiram, like many slaves, has half African ancestry and half Caucasian. His biological father is also his master. He is treated better than many other slaves, not quite like a son by his father or like a brother by his father's officially recognized son Maynard. But Hiram is certainly treated better than a brute animal, in part because of his talents beyond conduction such as an incredible memory and mastery of card tricks that entertains guests at parties. In blood as well as circumstances, Hiram has a lifestyle somewhere in between that of "The Tasked and that of "The Quality". But neither he nor those he loves best has freedom, and without that precious commodity, time on this earth is just an advance preview of Hell with stolen moments of sweetness all the more cherished because they can be taken away on a whim at any time. I didn't feel as emotionally invested in Hiram and the woman he loves (Sophia) and the woman who raises him after the death of the mother he barely remembers (Thena) as I was in the protagonist of Whitehead's Underground Railroad, or that of the wonderful Freeman by Leonard Pitts Jr.. I wasn't as impressed by the writing as I was by the prose in Edward P. Jones' The Known World or Charles R. Johnson's Middle Passage. I wasn't as absorbed in The Water Dancer as I was by the remarkable Kindred by Octavia E. Butler. Coates has not taken the literary throne from Toni Morrison and her novels such as Beloved and A Mercy. But this isn't to say that I did not enjoy The Water Dancer. It's just that I've read some incredible books that deal with the abomination of slavery. Ta-Nehisi is a very talented writer and I hope he continues gifting us with both his fiction and non-fiction writing on any topic of his choosing.
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When No One is Watching by Alyssa ColeMy rating: 3 of 5 stars
Alyssa Cole's WHEN NO ONE IS WATCHING made for a fun, fast read. It's a story of gentrification made even more sinister than it is in real life most of the time. The back cover copy describes it as "Rear Window meets Get Out" which is certainly an intriguing tag line. Those happen to be two of my favorite movies. The Rear Window part has to do with characters checking each other out from the window of an across the street apartment. This is done most often by Theo who is the main male character. His counterpart is Sydney Green, a Black woman who the White Theo is drawn to. The fact that his live-in girlfriend is horrible and soon to become his ex-girlfriend who intends to evict him is certainly enough to make Theo check out other romantic options. The setting is a neighborhood in contemporary Brooklyn, NY that is too quickly undergoing changes that most of the residents aren't crazy about. The Gifford Place community has been predominantly African American since well before Sydney grew up there, but of late a lot of the Black folks have been moving away (several under mysterious, unsettling circumstances), and in their place has been the arrival of affluent White people such as Theo's one foot out the door girlfriend - a stereotypically uptight and bitchy woman named Kim. Technically Theo is the one with one foot out the door, but Kim's the one doing the pushing. Sydney first encounters Theo and Kim on a walking tour of the neighborhood. She vocally disapproves of what the tour is highlighting and what it is leaving out, the latter being contributions over the years by the majority Black population of the neighborhood. Sydney decides to create a tour of her own to counter it. And unemployed Theo with plenty of time on hand volunteers to be her assistant, never mind the hostility she does not refrain from expressing about gentrifying White people such as Theo. The man is not without charm though, and Sydney is conveniently single just as Theo is in the process of becoming, so a potential love connection is one of the book's features. It is written in alternating first person point of view perspective - so we get a chapter from Sydney's viewpoint followed by one from Theo's and then back to Sydney and so on and so forth. As the story progresses, peculiar circumstances pile up on each other and suspicions rise from mild to full blown conspiracy territory. Why are so many of their neighbors here one day - gone the next? What could cause the bodega visited just the other day to be replaced with no notice by a store that's far less typical of what the neighborhood has been for decades, but perhaps will not be for much longer? Why isn't Syndey's best friend answering her texts? What does the company that's building a hospital in the neighborhood have to do with the various strange things that are taking place? In the book's final chapters a great deal of action occurs, major revelations are made, allegiances and loyalty is tested, and we take a deep dive into the Get Out-esque aspects of the plot. Cole writes in an easy to digest manner that has you reading speedily along to find out how things are going to work out. It's all a bit too over the top to be considered realistic or literary leaning. Instead, When No One is Watching is a solid mystery/thriller with a couple of likable lead characters that are pleasant to spend time with. Judging from the list of previously published Alyssa Cole titles that are promoted on the final page, she spends a lot of time in the Romance genre. I tend to steer clear of full blown Romance novels, but not of books where romance is an aspect of the story. My taste is my taste. If you're into Romance novels my guess is that you'll like Cole's other books because she is a fine writer. And if your preference in reading material leans towards books with social commentary to make and perhaps a disappearance or two to solve along the way, I recommend that you check out When No One is Watching. I'll be watching out for future Alyssa Cole books, though probably not the ones that feature a man and woman looking longingly at one another on the front cover. I can think of no higher compliment to give an author than that I'm watching out and looking forward to what they come up with next.
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Your Blues Ain't Like Mine by Bebe Moore CampbellMy rating: 3 of 5 stars
The setting of this book progresses from the eve of integration in rural Mississippi to the present-day housing projects of Chicago. It begins with the shameful murder of an African-American teenage boy who unknowingly commits a taboo act by speaking in French to a white girl, and follows the boy's family, the family of the murderers, and other citizens of the small town for the next four decades. This novel takes on a lot — perhaps a bit more than it can effectively chew — but ultimately does a fine job of showing its title to be profoundly true. Everybody has the blues sometimes, but if society is set up to your advantage at my expense then your blues ain't like mine.
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