It's Confusing Down There

The Man Who Lived Underground by Richard Wright

New York, N.Y. : A Library of America Special Publication, [2021] 

 xii, 228 p. ; 22 cm.

When you see that there is a "new" Richard Wright novel out in the world, well of course you have to read it - which is exactly what I did! Apparently this compact novella appeared as a short story, but in its full form was rejected by Wright's publisher. It seems the opening set up of the hero, a Black man named Fred Daniels, being arrested and tortured by police into confessing to a double-murder he's innocent of was just too much.  The scene is still excruciating, but not so shocking in this age of learning about police abuses of power. 

Though this portrayal of racist police violence and terror is horrifying, it serves as the launching off of the main action of the book: Fred Daniels escapes the police and goes to live for a number of days in the sewers beneath the city.  Here he wanders through the maze of the city's underground digging and tunneling into several places where he wrestles with guilt, greed, corruption and disillusion. He is able to peer into a Black church service, view a savings vault, and jewelry storage area. In his isolation and darkness he also begins to become a bit unhinged.

I liked a lot about this book, but I have to say that the movements and the descriptions of the underworld actions of the protagonist are pretty confusing. How he chisels through bricks and squirms into basements is hard to follow. The passage of time is not clear, and extreme changes in the main character make it seem like he is underground for months, when in fact it is only three days. I wish the writing had been a little more exact; I think it would have really added to the power of the book.

These issues aside, the book is also wonderful for including a long essay - "Memories of My Grandmother" - that is an exquisite revelation of Wright's thoughts about his writing, discussing origins, influences, the blues and jazz among other things. It's well worth the read.

I'm glad I read this novella and I will definitely recommend it to any student interested in Richard Wright. 

Bent Twisted Broken

Bent Heavens by Daniel Kraus

New York : Square Fish, Henry Holt and Co., 2021.

1st Square Fish ed. 

291 p. ; 22 cm.      

Pretty much everything I wrote about Kraus' earlier novel, Scowler, applies to this novel. I wanted to like Bent Heavens, but I found it profoundly unsatisfying on several levels. I feel bad being so negative because Kraus explains (in an author's note at the end of the book) that he wrote this as a protest against the torture regime implemented under the Bush-Cheney administration.  It feels odd to dislike this book so much since it got starred reviews in Booklist and School Library Journal. 

The premise of the book is interesting. High schooler Liv's father (a high school English teacher) had a complete mental breakdown years previous when he insisted he was abducted by aliens. Then after being released he actually disappears and has been gone for two years. He left behind gruesome contraptions for trapping said aliens. Liv and her loner friend, Doug, check the traps weekly until one day, they catch an alien! 

Instead of turning the creature in to the authorities, Doug suggests torturing it as a way of both punishing it for what the aliens did to Liv's father and possibly getting it to reveal what happened (it can't speak but can squeal and whimper). There's a lot of gruesome beatings, cutting, and hurting that goes on in a torture shed on Liv's property - and I just NEVER believed Liv would go along with it.  I also think that Doug is that stereotype oddball loner type that supposedly is predisposed to sadism. By two thirds of the way through the book, I had guessed at the "wow" plot twist that ends the novel and so was neither surprised nor moved (unlike reviewers).

Well, obviously I did not like this novel. Instead of the heavy handed torture, a more subtle use of torture like that endorsed by Bush-Cheney would have been more pointed - e.g. forced nudity, sleep deprivation, sensory deprivation, water-boarding, etc.  Also having the alien able to communicate in some basic ways would have been more effective, too. Instead the plot zig zags into the nonsensical and absurd which left me wondering if I even read the same book as the people who starred this mess.