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. 

A Wonder of Wonderland

A Blade So Black by L.L. McKinney

New York : Imprint, 2018.     

370 p. ; 22 cm.

I wish I liked contemporary fantasy/action better because I think then I would have really loved this novel.  It has some of that familiar territory of dual worlds with only certain people (or characters) having the ability to travel between them.  Alice, the main character of A Blade So Black, is one of these people.  She can visit Wonderland where nightmares come from, and there she can battle them and help keep the human world safe.  

Alice is also a young Black woman, a high-schooler who's father has recently died and whose mother worries dreadfully about her well-being in this real world (Atlanta, GA to be specific) that is so dangerous for young Black women. 

Turns out Alice is also a very talented warrior against nightmares and so is part of an elite group of humans known as Dreamwalkers who do battle against the dangers of Wonderland that threaten to overtake the regular world the rest of us live in.

Oh, and the other fun catch to this novel is that it cleverly echoes the Alice in Wonderland story. As you can see there is A LOT going for this book.  Some reviews have noted some hiccups in the pacing (I would agree) and a bit of vagueness in the "world-building" of Wonderland (also agree), but the reviews also note the great character building and dynamic fight scenes that McKinney has created.  Yes, I would agree.  To students who like Neil Gaiman or Cassandra Clare or who just want something exciting and otherworldly I would definitely recommend this book. The fact that the hero is an African American teen young woman who has to deal with parent-rules, school, crushes, and teen life is an added benefit.

Finally, the book does wrap-up (SORT OF) at the end, but then closes with an epilogue teaser that means there will be more novels taking up the adventures of Alice the Dreamwalker.

What Brown's Gonna Do With You

The Good Lord Bird by James McBride

New York : Riverhead Books, 2014.

458 p. ; 21 cm.

When a book wins the National Book Award (2013), that definitely puts in on one's radar - and so I brought home The Good Lord Bird with me during the spring and summer pandemic lock-down.  

This novel is a rollicking, funny, provocative and hard to put down read.  It follows the adventures of Henry, an enslaved 12 year old freed in Kansas by the passionate and violent abolitionist, John Brown.  Mistaking Henry to be Henrietta, a girl, Brown "adopts" him into his band and nicknames her "Little Onion." The novel is told by Henry who - with his maturing over about three years, his change from enslaved to free, and his passing as a girl - allows McBride to explore many angles of John Brown's movement and eventual assault on Harper's Ferry.  McBride is able to present shifting and complex takes on fanaticism, recklessness, posturing, violence, racism, slavery, sexism, opportunism, danger, and sacrifice by giving his smart-alecky, wry and cynical main character center stage.

The cover of the book has a quote from the New York Times referencing Mark Twain, and I definitely felt the sensibilities of Twain's character Huck Finn in McBride's Henry.  

The novel is not without provocation.  Henry - suffering the harsh, spartan life of being with a paramilitary band on the frontier - at times wishes he were back being enslaved.  Fredrick Douglass comes in for some harsh treatment as a "diva" of the antislavery circuit and as an intemperate sexual harasser.  But all in all, the novel is a brilliant run through a historical episode in US history that still reverberates to this day.  I would definitely recommend it to a reader who wants a good literary read that will grab them and not let go.

Cruel School

The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead

New York : Doubleday, [2019]  

213 p. ; 22 cm.

 

After reading Whitehead's The Underground Railroad, I knew I wanted to read his latest novel - The Nickel Boys.  Underground Railroad was brutal at times, but the fantastic nature of the novel helped me as a reader keep it's terror at bay - there is no such consolation in Nickel Boys, especially when you realize that the novel is firmly grounded in the real-life horrors that occurred in the Dozier School for Boys in the Florida panhandle. 

Whitehead's novel is set in the mid-60s and involves a stand-up African American high school student - Elwood- who is headed for college near Tallahassee.  But being a young black man in Jim Crow Florida lands Elwood in a reform school for boys that is run with sadistic cruelty, racism and corruption.  There, the idealistic Elwood faces the barbarism of the school and becomes friends with the more savvy Turner who is willing to help them both survive (boys in the school are sometimes killed by the staff both in real-life and in the novel). The novel is a taught and terrifying story of survival in the cruelest of environments. The reader never knows what will happen to the characters right up until the shocking ending. 

As I mentioned in my post about The Underground Railroad, Whitehead is a superb writer and - if you can endure the cruelty of the events - the novel is well worth reading.

An Unnerving Ride

The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead
New York : Anchor Books,  2018.
1st Anchor Bks. ed.
313 p. ; 21 cm.

This was supposed to be Spring Break week, and instead it has turned into the start of an extended period of school closings and home isolation for weeks (no one knows how many) as the Covid-19 pandemic picks up the pace of its global onslaught here in the US.

I am so glad that one of the novels I brought home with me for the break was Whitehead's The Underground Railroad.  The novel was published to huge acclaim - winning the Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award, and I heard it described as a fantastical tale of historical fiction where the figurative Underground Railroad is turned into an actual subterranean working railroad.  I was a bit skeptical - but - wow! - if you haven't read this novel, it is a must read.

Whitehead has also won one of those MacArthur "genius" grants and all I can say is "Yes!" and admire the foundation for recognizing him way back in 2002 when he had only written two novels. He writing is a thing of wonder.   He manages to do so many things right in such a complicated and yet accessible way.  He can create history that never was in order to make the history that was come alive in eerie and unsettling ways.  He made me mull over the (literally) tortured history of this country and the nature of human cruelty and courage in ways that go right to the heart.

Yes, Whitehead's Underground Railroad has real tunnels, tracks and locomotives - but you never for a moment doubt it.  And his narratives of enslaved life and the escape narrative will have your heart racing as you turn the pages rooting for the heroes of the novel.

It is such a thrill to read a writer's work when they are in their prime and to know that you are reading someone whose works will be read and admired long after you are gone. It is a thrill and an honor.

Can you tell I loved this novel?  Recommend it. Read it.  Sit with it and let it work its magic on you.  You won't be disappointed.

 

Before the Road

Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler
New York : Warner Books, 2017, [2000]
345 p. ; 21 cm.

I was pretty excited to learn that the creative duo who brought Octavia Butler's Kindred out as a best-selling graphic novel  has published another graphic novel adaptation of a work by Octavia Butler: Parable of the Sower.  But before reading the graphic novel, I wanted to read Butler's original novel.

I'm so pleased that Butler's work is experiencing a renaissance of late. Her work is powerfully imaginative and touches on so many relevant themes: racism, injustice, violence, social upheaval, displacement, and compassion.  Additionally, her stories are exciting and her writing engaging. Parable of the Sower is no exception. Set in California in the future (2025) there is a lot that is familiar - technological achievements, drug addiction, police corruption, gated communities, poverty, climate disruption, corporate greed, crime and violence - but the negatives are ramped-up to the extreme. Civic institutions - police, fire, and civic institutions - have become worthless, corrupt, and sometimes dangerous, while violent individuals and bands of criminals wreak havoc on small communities that seek to protect themselves with walls and guns.  Out of this maelstrom a small band of refugees looks to create a new society, led by the protagonist of the novel, a young 18 year old woman. She is a mystical figure who wants to start a new religion, Earthseed.

Parable of the Sower reminded me a bit of Cormac McCarthy's The Road which was written long after Butler's novel, but shares some of the same disturbing views of the savagery of human nature. 

I'll be interested to see how the the graphic novel version of this is.  Our library has it and it has been getting excellent reviews.   

If I find a student who is interested in afro-futurism or dystopian fiction, this is a book I'll definitely recommend.

Schooled

Dear Martin by Nic Stone
New York : Crown, 2017
210 p. ; 22 cm.

Nic Stone has written a really interesting book that picks up on many of the racial issues that are roiling US society today - such as white privilege, racist police violence, profiling, criminal justice, equity, and income inequality. And she manages to do it with a really likable, but complex teen named Justyce who is on scholarship at a prestigious boarding school where the students are predominately white.   

Though being a stand-out student, Justyce - doing nothing wrong - finds himself being roughly arrested (and threatened) by police.  This experience leads him down a path of questioning and introspection (chronicled in his journal/letters to MLK - the dear Martin of the title). 

There is a lot of wrestling with how to fit in, how to advocate for yourself and pride in racial identity, and a nice (and racially complex) love story thrown in for good measure.  The plot takes a dramatic turn and I don't want to spoil that for you, but it is the heart of the novel's conflict. 

This book - like The Hate U Give - is a good book to recommend for students interested in thinking about issues around Black Lives Matter and would be a good discussion starter.  Stone's strength is developing complex characters and she's not bad a spinning out a good plot, too.

I would recommend this novel.
   

Like Horses at Rush Hour

Ghetto Cowboy by G. Neri
Somerville, Mass. : Candlewick Press, 2011.
218 p. : ill. ; 22 cm.    

I really got a kick out of this book.  The plot seems so ludicrous that I at first thought, this Neri has one crazy imagination.  I mean a wayward Detroit African-American kid sent by his mom to Philadelphia so he can straighten up with the father he has never known - who just happens to be a skilled horseman/cowboy living in the run down, inner city of Philly.  The thing is, it's based on real-life African-American, urban cowboys who have carried on this city tradition for nearly 100 years.

If you don't believe it, go over to G. Neri's website and brush up on your history - and get ready for a film version of the novel.

The novel is a touching coming of age story, involving the almost-teen Cole who has driven his mom to the edge with his growing misbehavior and bad attitude.  So she packs him in the car at night and takes him to Philadelphia where she literally dumps him with his father who he doesn't even know. After a rough start, the two start to bond and Cole - by working with horses - starts to figure out what the important things in life really are.  One of those values is taking a stand for tradition and culture against the greed of developers. 

There's a lot to recommend this story.  It angles a little young for high-schoolers, but I'll still recommend it, using the unreal situation of horses in the inner city as a selling point.

The Uncivil Dead

Dread Nation by Justina Ireland
New York, NY : Balzer + Bray, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers, [2018]
451 p. ; 22 cm.

This really is a humdinger of a creative novel for YAs.  It's an alternative history, a thriller, and a zombie novel all rolled into one with a great heroine and lots of subtext (racism, walls to keep outsiders out, political corruption and lies, etc.) Could be right out of today's headlines instead of a few decades after the Civil War.  Oh, and this Civil War didn't end at Appomattox with the defeat of the Confederacy - it came to an uneasy end at Gettysburg when the dead on the battlefield got up and started eating the living.

That grisly twist did end the war and ended slavery (just like the real Civil War) but not racism (just like that real war again!) African Americans instead were freed to become fighters against the shamblers, Justina Ireland's great name for the zombies. That's just part of the story.  The engine of this novel (in addition to the unending hunger of the shamblers, is the resurgent attempts by white supremacists to reassert their power and control in the devastated landscape of  the US.  They achieve this with migration west, deception, corruption, harsh religion, and brutality.  Let's just say that Jane McKeene - the heroine of this tale - isn't just going to sit still and accept this.

I'm not the only one who liked this book.  It has received a lot of critical acclaim.  I'd say it's definitely a recommended read.     

X + U = SLAM

The Poet X by Elizabeth Acevedo
New York, NY : HarperTeen, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers, 2018.   
361 p. ; 22 cm.

I'm not even going to pretend to be objective about this book.  After seeing and hearing Acevedo read at our local library last week, while I was about half way through this book, all I can say is "Yes, read this book and recommend it to students you know." 

She is a great performer and a strong writer, too.  When I handed a copy of this book to a student recently, I said, "Be sure and look her up on YouTube."

The book is a fine telling of Xiomara, a girl coming of age in contemporary Harlem, NYC.  She is a sensitive, but bold, young woman who is being raised by a very strict and very religious mother, and a somewhat distant and checked-out father - both who are immigrants from the Dominican Republic. She is also a twin of a brother she loves, and they both are struggling to become the adults they want to be - while under the restraints of their loving, but oppressive family.

Fortunately for Xiomara, her salvation is in nurturing her gift for poetry and spoken word performance.  Will it be enough to overcome the binds of family and religion?  Will she be able to find romantic love when her mother doesn't even want her talking to boys?  Can she help her brother as he struggles to own his gay identity?

Well, you'll have to read the book to find out.  There are unexpected plot twists and scenes of great emotion - and you won't be disappointed. I swear!

Thumbs Up All the Way Down

Long Way Down by Jason Reynolds
New York : Atheneum, [2017]
306 p. ; 22 cm.

I'm a fan of Jason Reynolds, especially his When I was the Greatest, and somewhat of his foray into superhero fiction; this work did not disappoint.  I wasn't sure I'd like his novel in verse; when that genre fails, it reads like mediocre prose chopped into lines.  Instead, in this novel the poetry works.  The poems help to enhance the ghostly narrative of the work (the main character is visited by ghosts of friends and family who have been killed by guns), and Reynolds uses a lot of assonance, consonance and internal rhymes to keep the language snapping and tight.

The movement of Reynolds' story is also creative and satisfying.  Will, a young man is on his way to avenge the shooting/killing of his dearly loved older brother, Shawn.  Taking the elevator down from the 7th floor,  he is visited at each floor by the ghosts of various people he's known who have been shot.  These ghosts offer insights, challenges and experience to Will.

The novel manages to be moving, thought-provoking, and interesting.  It also doesn't end wrapped up and tidy.  I would definitely recommend this book.

A Fun, but Tangled Web

Miles Morales, Spider-Man by Jason Reynolds
Los Angeles : Marvel, 2017.
261 p. ; 22 cm.

Jason Reynolds is a talented writer (I really enjoyed the last book of his I read) and this story bears that out. It's a fun, clever and fleshed out novel that takes the Brian Michael Bendis' reboot of Spider-man as its jumping off point.     

The fun and attraction of Reynold's novel is the way it just treats as totally believable the idea of a late middle-schooler from Brooklyn having Spider-man-like super powers and runs with it.  Think of the problems and dilemmas having such powers would be while trying to navigate middle school and adolescence.  Add in the pressures of racism on our young African American superhero and you have a great recipe for storytelling. 

I was with Reynolds for all but the villainous (and somewhat mystical, magical mythical) role played by the Chamberlains of the novel.  This character(s) seems to represent the embodiment of White Supremacy and though interesting, I think it ultimately becomes too magical and unresolved.  Does this ruin the novel?  I don't think so.  I still enjoyed the read - great characters, great descriptions of the Brooklyn setting, and some action packed episodes of Spider-man adventures.  However, I would have liked it better if the racism and set-backs were just the usual racism and discrimination that Miles Morales would have experienced - instead of it being in the shapeshifting, creepy incarnation of Chamberlain.

Love This Hate

The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas
New York, NY : Balzer + Bray, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers, [2017]
444 p. ; 22 cm.   

It is hard to imagine a better novel being written for young adults on the topic of police killings of unarmed black people.  Thomas has a remarkable gift for dialogue and characterization that pulls the reader into the world of her main character, Starr, a black high school student who is with her friend when he is pulled over and killed by a police officer.

Starr straddles many worlds - lives in a struggling, black section of town but goes to an exclusive mostly white school, has a dad who has done time in prison and a mom who is a successful professional, sees the harsh and lethal behavior of the police toward black people, but has a dear relative who is a cop.  With such a character, Thomas is able to create a work that has hooks for all kinds of readers, and allows conflicting viewpoints to get a hearing.  It's really quite an accomplishment.  Additionally, with a story that is really dramatic and interesting and characters who are fascinating, you can see why this is such a popular novel.

Since police killings of unarmed citizens and police brutality continue to make headlines, I imagine that The Hate U Give will be in demand for a long time.

The only critiques I have of the book are that it gets a bit complicated as far a characters go - there are a dizzying array of friends, relatives and acquaintances and secondary characters to keep up with.  Lastly there are a few scenes - especially with Starr's father - where his dialogue feels staged for the sole purpose of detailing the politics and ideals of the black power movement.  But those are minor criticisms.  Mainly I was really pleased with this book.

Recommended?  Definitely!

Swoosh!

The Crossover by Kwame Alexander
Boston : Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, [2014]
237 p. ; 22 cm.

One advantage of being home sick is getting around to reading books that were on my backlist.  The Crossover is one of those, and it helped that I mentioned it a few weeks ago to a student, who told me he liked it.    

The Crossover is a "novels in verse" which I'm not as taken with as some readers are, but Kwame Alexander's novel received such glowing praise and awards - including  the prestigious Newbery Award and honors from the Coretta Scott King Awards - that I felt I had to read it.

I have no complaints about the book.  Alexander dazzles with his lively poems and energetic vocabulary and style.  The narrative of the book - involving twin brothers who are very young basketball phenoms - is exciting, fascinating, filled with sports and family drama, and is unpredictable.  What more could you want?

Really my only gripe is that the book is pretty young for a high school audience.  It feels VERY middle school - including the one twin brother's utter incomprehension that his other brother is more interested in romantic love than in hanging out with him! I guess I'll still recommend the book, but just mention that the main characters are middle schoolers, not high schoolers.

A Hard Look at Blue Eye

The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison
New York : Vintage International, 2007, c1970
xiii, 205 p. ; 21 cm. 

The first thing to say about this novel, by Nobel Prize winning author, Toni Morrison, is that it is an amazing first novel. It richly conveys the texture of the lives of three African American girls in a town in Ohio in the 1940s - focusing on one especially pitiful girl, Pecola, who is treated by all as "ugly" and is obsessed with wanting blue eyes.

It is a gritty novel of childhood cruelties, bonds of sisterhood, the dynamics of race, class and sexism.  Poverty, incest, domestic violence, alcoholism, pedophilia and prostitution all come under scrutiny in Morrison's tale.

For me the most vexing aspect of the novel revolves around a male character who rapes his daughter.  The author ventures to enter into the mind of the perpetrator and - frankly - ends up creating a false and "artistic" artifact out of this act of sexual violence.  I say this with some trepidation, realizing that all artists take risks in trying to enter into scenarios and personalities that are radically distinct from their own. Often such risks produce stunning works of art.  However, my assessment is that Morrison grossly misses the mark on this one, and ends up with a rather fanciful, empathetic, and even sympathetic portrayal of the rapist. 

Considered as part of the body of work of Morrison, Bluest Eye, is definitely worth reading and, as I said is a powerful and very readable book.  I just think it deserves a hard look at it's shortcomings.  As I told a friend, my feeling after reading the book [regarding the character who commits the incest/rape] was, "She doesn't know what she's talking about.  She doesn't have any business going there...."

Light Read, but a Good Read

If I Was Your Girl by Ni-Ni Simone
New York : Kensington Pub. Corp., 2008
viii, 261 p. ; 22 cm.

Ni-Ni Simone is an extremely popular author at our library, and so I finally got around to reading one of her novels to see what makes her books spend so much time off the shelves and in the hands of readers.

After reading If I Were Your Girl, I understand the appeal of her books.  Simone is great with dialogue and conveying the attitude of her characters.  She's also skilled at moving the plot along, while creating a rich array of interesting characters.  One of the things I really enjoyed about Simone is that she is able to explore the mistakes and shortcomings of her characters without being preachy, but is also able to show them developing and succeeding in ways that are interesting and not always predictable.

I especially liked how Simone is able to make a really creepy "player" like Quamir - the main character's first boyfriend - believable to the point where the reader almost believes his lies and lines. With convincing dialogue and scenes we are able to sympathize with Toi, the main character as she struggles to figure out which characters actually care about her, and which characters are simply out to use her.

Finally, the plot is really satisfying in that Toi's maturation and development during the novel is reasonable and not miraculous - and the life she creates as a young teen mother is redemptive, but still not easy.

I am truly grateful that there are authors like Simone who are writing for the teens, especially young women, who want the realism and grittiness of urban fiction and novels with "drama" - but is able to do it with meaningful characters and dialogue, instead of simply peppering her narrative with graphic sex and obscene language.

Purple Carries On

The Color Purple by Alice Walker
Orlando, FL: Harcourt, Delta Trade Paperbacks, [2003], c1982.
294 p. ; 18 cm.


I first read The Color Purple back in the early 80s, and so it was an interesting experience to reread it, now that it has become a classic of American literature and is still popular with readers - including our high school students.


There is a lot to recommend The Color Purple - strong narrative voice, dynamic characters, shifting relationships and conflicts, and satisfying outcomes. The novel deals with incest, abuse, women's rights, racism, and religion  - so it's not surprising that there is an inherent interest in the novel. Also the novel is very accessible, written in letter format - mostly imagined letters from the main character, Celie, and a few from her sister Nettie.


I remember back when I read Alice Walker's book, it was a popular sensation: many people were reading and talking about it, and then it became a major motion picture.  I enjoyed it a lot back then.  Reading it a second time I found myself less taken with it.


I'd say my greatest problems with the novel are the extreme character change in the main character - from timid, whipped-dog subservient victim to sassy, smart and free-thinking feminist - the set pieces where characters go on and on, basically expounding the author's beliefs about pantheistic religion, Afrocentric pride, feminist principles, and new-age self esteem. It's not that I disagree with all of her views; it's just that they seem out of place historically and out of character at times.  My last disappointment was with the unbelievable happy outcomes of the novel.  I like just a little more salt and less sugar to end my favorite novels - and without giving away the ending, there is just so much triumph and happiness in the end that I was scratching my head in disbelief.


Negative criticisms aside - The Color Purple remains a powerful, engaging story that many readers - young adult to old adult - are likely to enjoy.