Did you ever wonder what your life would be like if you were a guerrilla fighter in Africa? Probably not. But here it is. The blurbs (but not the bookDid you ever wonder what your life would be like if you were a guerrilla fighter in Africa? Probably not. But here it is. The blurbs (but not the book) tell us we are in an unnamed country in West Africa. Perhaps Nigeria, where the author's parents were from.
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I’m tempted to create a new shelf: “Not a pretty book.” As you can imagine there is a lot of warfare and some gore, but the author actually spares us a lot of the details as the young man who is the main character (a boy, really), just sums up a typical day by telling us “…killing, killing, killing.” As the story progresses, we see this child soldier ‘graduate’ from a machete to a gun. The lieutenant commander is named ‘Rambo’ from the movie.
The boy reminisces about his loving mother who read him Christian Bible stories, his sister, and his father who was a school teacher. His father tells him they must give a nod to the old gods too because “God is knowing that we are only worshiping him truly, but there are other spirit that we must also be saying hello to.” He dreams of food, because they are often hungry, and of finding his mother and sister.
One day his peaceful village world was shattered by the impending arrival of rebels. A UN convoy appears to evacuate the women and children. He stays with his father and the other men of the village. Bad move. Guerrillas attack and his father is killed. The boy has no choice but to join the rebels.(view spoiler)[ ‘If you don’t join us, we will jump on your chest until you bleed from your mouth and die.’ (hide spoiler)] He joins them and becomes a killer.
The rebels don’t seem to have any particular ideology or political goals. Their commandant is simply a physically big, ugly, vicious bully who kills soldiers who don’t obey him. His only philosophy seems to be “THE BLOOD MUST FLOW.” They attack small bands of government soldiers or police and avoid larger forces.
It seems that this is simply a way of life that this band of 120 men has adopted: raid undefended villages, kill people, rape women, steal food, burn the village, leave. In particular they want more guns (not all the guerrillas have them) and they want more uniforms – any uniform will do – police, soldier – to replace the rags some of them wear. The boy quickly learns that a gun is more valuable than any soldier’s life.
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The boy’s only friend is another young boy who has become mute with the trauma he has suffered. In his idle time he takes a stick and draws a picture of a headless man and woman – his parents. The commandant gives the two young boys special favors. (view spoiler)[ And he sexually molests them (hide spoiler)]
The voice. The entire book is written as a narration from the young boy who has a distinctive voice with unusual grammatical constructions. Here are a few passages as examples:
“The boy who is hitting me is running to the first truck. When he is reaching the door, he is bending down with his back so straight and his leg so straight. Only his head is moving back and forward, left and right, on his neck. Then he is standing up and suddenly, quick just like that, the door of the truck is swinging open and hitting the boy right in his big belly and he is just taking off like bird, flying in the air, and landing on his buttom in hole of water in the road. There is sound coming from all the other soldier. It is laughing sound.”
“As we are standing in this field, Commandant is walking in front of us and shouting, are we soldier? We are saying, yes Sah! Are we army? Are we strong and proud? And we are saying, yes Sah! Yes Sah! and he is smiling, but I am knowing that he is not believing what we are saying because sometimes he is talking to himself that we are hopeless and only good enough to be thrown into battle and die.”
“Across the stream, I am feeling in my body something like electricity and I am starting to think: Yes it is good to fight. I am liking how the gun is shooting and the knife is chopping. I am liking to see people running from me and people screaming for me when I am killing them and taking their blood. I am liking to kill.”
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It’s hard to believe that people live (and die) like this, but apparently so. However, the story is not autobiographical, and the author did not personally experience events like this. The author is a Nigerian American born in the US (in 1982) who wrote this book as part of his master’s thesis in Creative Writing at Harvard. The book was made into a Netflix movie in 2015.
[Edited 4/11/24 to hide spoilers]
Top photo from issafrica.com Middle photo by Rando53 on imgur.com who writes that guerillas in West Africa often wear strange costumes into battle (although this was not mentioned in the book) The author from skoll.org...more
Fourteen great short stories about African Americans in Washington DC by an outstanding African American author, winner of the 2004 Pulitzer Prize forFourteen great short stories about African Americans in Washington DC by an outstanding African American author, winner of the 2004 Pulitzer Prize for his novel The Known World. [Edited for typos 8/17/24]
(Disclaimer: way back in the 1980’s when I was a faculty member at George Mason U, I took a graduate writing course from the author who taught as an adjunct faculty member there – a great course but he would not remember me, lol.)
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Jones has a geographer’s eye so we get a lot of detail about specific locations, streets and stores. He was born in 1950 and grew up in DC so we assume a lot of these stories are about what life was like in what would have then been called “the ghetto” at a time of drugs and high crime rates.
In what follows I’ll let the author speak for himself so you can see his writing style and I’ve tried to pick quotes that also illustrate what some of the stories are about:
The story The First Day begins “On an otherwise unremarkable September morning, long before I learned to be ashamed of my mother, she takes my hand and we set off down New Jersey Avenue to begin my very first day of school.”
From The Girl Who Raised Pigeons: “That was one of the last days in the park for them. Robert came to believe later that the tumor that would consume his wife’s brain had been growing even on that rainy day. And it was there all those times he made love to her, and the thought that it was there, perhaps at first no bigger than a grain of salt, made him feel that he had somehow used her…”
From the story Young Lions: “He liked remembering. The last time had been eight months ago when they crossed into Maryland and he shot the 7-Eleven clerk in the face.”
The three quotes following are all from The Store:
“Never even if you become kings of the whole world, I don’t want yall messing with a white cop.” (Some things don’t change.)
“I think he liked her, maybe not as much as she liked him, but just enough so it wasn’t a total sacrifice to marry her.”
“The next week I took the G2 bus all the way down to P Street, crossing 16th St. into the land of white people. I didn’t drive because my father had always told me that white people did not like to see Negroes driving cars…”
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In the story An Orange Line Train to Ballston, a mother’s kids are acting up on the subway: “She did not like scenes like this, particularly around white people, who believe that nothing good ever happened between black people and their children, but she could not stop herself.”
Three quotes from The Sunday Following Mother’s Day [a man stabs his wife and then calls his sister]:
“ ‘I stabbed her a lot,’ Samuel said, and though Maddie was still rising up from sleep as he talked, those words were forever imprinted on her mind. He told her to come get his babies, that soon they would be up and ready to eat. As far as anyone could ever tell, the two-minute-or-so conversation he had with Maddie was all he would ever say in life about the murder of a woman the whole world believed he loved – give or take this or that – more than anything.”
“In her child’s mind, he was doing no more than playing hooky for the day and she thought they would see him that evening, but in fact he was gone fifteen years and eight months.”
“Never get lost in white folks’ neighborhood. The first law a the land.”
From the title story: “If it was true what her mother had once told her, then nothing rang the telephone like death in the middle of the night.”
“In one of the museums white men had allowed her father to make a living pushing a broom, and now she was paid in one year more than her parents had earned in both their lifetimes. Soon she would pass a point in her life where she would have earned more than all her ancestors put together, all of them, all the way back to Eve.”
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From the story His Mother’s House [a son buys a house for his mother] “And once in the house he bought, in the renovated house, one of her pleasures in the first weeks was watching the neighbors watch as the trucks came to deliver furniture, some of it still in sealed boxes and crates, brand new furniture and appliances that no other woman in the world had lived with.”
In the story A Dark Night: “She could not have looked anymore forlorn if she had been out in the storm: breathing as if each breath would be her last, her wig perched haphazardly on her head as if it had been dropped from the ceiling by accident, her pocketbook hanging from the arm that a stroke had permanently folded against her body, her eyeglasses resting near the end of her nose, beyond where they could possibly do her any good.”
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Here’s an interesting author’s technique that I saw in Wikipedia’s entry on Jones: these 14 stories, published in a collection in 1993, are arranged by age of the characters, youngest to oldest. (I did not realize that when I read them.) He published a second collection, All Aunt Hagar's Children, in 2006 with 14 stories that pick up, in order, on each character in the first book. Pretty neat! That second book, which I intend to read, was a finalist for the PEN/Faulkner award.
Great stories and great writing, really one of the best short story collections I have ever read. Adding it to my favorites.
Top photo of a DC neighborhood around the time the author grew up from smithsonianmag.com Aftermath of civil disturbances in DC in 1968 from wamu.org Community gardens, 1960's from riverterracehistoryscrapbookdc.org The author from harpercollins.com...more
I very much enjoyed this author’s A Lesson Before Dying. (I thought it was classic quality). Gathering is a good story, although not as strong.
We’re iI very much enjoyed this author’s A Lesson Before Dying. (I thought it was classic quality). Gathering is a good story, although not as strong.
We’re in Louisiana in the 1970’s. A white man has been killed in a rural African American neighborhood. By the time the sheriff arrives at the scene he finds about 17 old and aging black men standing around with shotguns and one white woman. They all claim to have shot him, including the white woman.
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The victim is a young man, the son of a notorious Klan-type guy, patriarch of an important local family known for their hatred of blacks. Everyone knows the patriarch and his other sons will round up like-minded neighbors and take revenge.
As the sheriff and his deputy interview, and at times, slap and knock the men around, the black men give their reasons for hating the man they supposedly killed. We hear horror stories of lives of terror. I’ll give just two examples so I don’t give away too much of the story. Years ago one man’s son was beaten so badly by local white thugs that he suffered brain damage and had to be institutionalized. A decorated WW I veteran is there in his old moth-eaten uniform which he could never before wear in public because he was told not to be seen in it because he had dared to kill white people (Germans).
The sheriff thinks he knows who did it, but we have a surprise twist at the end. Even football gets into the story. A two-man superstar team, one player black, one white, plays a role in the events.
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This story would make a good play. There are only three settings – the front stoop of the house where the man was shot, a scene at the home of the family gathered to mourn the victim, and a scene in a bar where the white thugs hang out.
The story is set among the French Creole population in Louisiana. Some French influence remains from Cajun culture in things like calling their godfather ‘Parain.’The author (1933-2019) was an African American man who grew up as a son of sharecroppers in Louisiana, picking cotton when he was six years old and growing up in old slave quarters on a plantation.
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In his novels Gaines used his background to create the fictional world of Bayonne in St. Raphael Parish, Louisiana. While A Lesson Before Dying is his most-read work, the general public may know him better for the TV movie made from one of his other works, The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman, modeled on his aunt who raised him. A Gathering of Old Men was made into a TV movie in 1987, starring Louis Gossett, Jr.
Top photo: modern-day houses in Louisiana from manhattan-institute.org Middle: a rural Louisiana family around the time the author was growing up from thevintagenews.com The author from the vermilion.com ...more
A Lesson Before Dying by Ernest J. Gaines [Revised, spoilers hidden 9/12/23]
I think this book deserves to be considered a classic of American literatuA Lesson Before Dying by Ernest J. Gaines [Revised, spoilers hidden 9/12/23]
I think this book deserves to be considered a classic of American literature about Black-white relations in the American South. Two other books I think of in this category (there are several others) are To Kill a Mockingbird and The Help. None are “great literature” in a literary sense – great writing - but they are popular books and they tell stories that need to be told. For those skeptical about The Help as a classic, consider that it has more than 2 million ratings on GR and 85,000 reviews and that it is assigned reading in high school and college courses. So, despite its lack of literary brilliance, I think it’s inevitable that it will come to be thought of as a classic. Of the three, Gaines’ book is the most “genuine,” if I may use that word, because it was written by an African American man who grew up as a son of sharecroppers, picking cotton when he was six years old.
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The story is set among the French Creole population in Louisiana, probably about the time the author was growing up, the Jim Crow era. Some French influence remains in the language from Cajun culture in things like calling their aunt ‘Tante’ or their godfather ‘Parain.’
The story starts with Jefferson, a young Black man brought up by his godmother. He’s slow and almost uneducated. One fateful day he takes a ride with two other young Black men who end up in a shootout with a white store clerk. The two Black men and the store clerk all die. Jefferson had nothing to do with it. At his trial, Jefferson’s lawyer points out his ignorance, the ‘lack of slope in his forehead,’ and tells the all-white jury “Why, I would as soon put a hog in the electric chair as this.” (And Jefferson’s relations understand what the lawyer is trying to do – it’s their only hope.)
Of course, to the all-white jury, the facts in the case are ‘straightforward’: a white man was killed; a Black man was there; he’s sentenced to die in the electric chair. We know all this a few pages into the book. The trial is not the focus of the book – it’s not a John Grisham novel.
The focus of the story now turns to Grant, a young Black man who is the teacher in a run-down school for Black children. He’s one of the few educated Black men in town; folks call him ‘professor.’ We learn about the school. It’s a public school even though it’s housed in an old church. Grant is the only teacher for six grades. They use worn-out books with missing pages discarded by white students. Kids bring in wood to heat the building in winter. The students kneel in front of the pews to use the seats as desks.
Grant’s parents live in California so he lives with his aunt, the best friend of Jefferson’s godmother. Jefferson’s godmother has one wish before her godson’s execution: that Grant do whatever he can to can to get Jefferson to die like a man and not 'like a hog.'
Grant is reluctant and has no idea how to approach this task during the few months of life Jefferson has left. Grant is educated but agnostic, so the godmother also asks her elderly minister to intervene with Jefferson. It becomes almost a competition between the men: when Jefferson goes to his execution, ‘will he kneel or will he stand’?
Grant and the minister have their work cut out for them: Jefferson is in a stupor, refusing to talk, even to greet visitors nor eat the food his godmother lovingly prepares for him. He says he’s a hog and will die like one. The story line is helped along with a love interest – Grant and a female teacher in a neighboring town.
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A lot of the story is a catalog of how whites of that era treated Blacks. (view spoiler)[ Grant and his aunt need to see a rich white man that his aunt used to work for. They have to ask the rich man for help to get the sheriff to allow Grant and the minister to visit the cell. They enter through the back door and wait for an hour in the kitchen, talking to the cook and maid. When they get into the white man’s office, even the elderly aunt is not offered a chair. The same happens when they talk to the sheriff. Grant buys a radio for Jefferson from a white clerk; he has to argue with her to get a radio that comes in a box rather than the display model. She makes him wait a half hour while she chats with other white people. (hide spoiler)]
Grant talks with a group of white men: “I tried to decide just how I should respond to them. Whether I should act like the teacher that I was, or like the nigger that I was supposed to be.” Language is the key. He takes the high road in talking of his aunt and says “…she doesn’t feel that …” The white man says: “She doesn’t, huh?”…He emphasized ‘doesn’t.’ I was supposed to have said ‘don’t.’ I was being too smart.”
Are all white people like that? No, one is not. Just one: a young white deputy at the jail who is friendly toward Grant and Jefferson and who tries to help them out with the various obstacles the sheriff puts in their way and with the indignities of searches when they arrive at the jail.
Nor are Blacks immune from racism. (view spoiler)[ Grant tells us of mulatto men, half Black, half white, who look down on the ‘niggers’ who do field work, like sugar cane cutting. They will only work in bricklaying or carpentry. Grant visits an elderly Black teacher who was a mentor to him and notes that his wife judges the quality of her husband’s visitors by the darkness of their skin – Grant's skin color is suspect. The teacher is a cynic and thinks Grant is wasting his life by staying in this hellhole instead of leaving. He says to Grant: “I am superior to any man blacker than me.” And, if Grant stays, “[they’ll] make you the nigger you were born to be.” (hide spoiler)]
Jefferson keeps a diary in his primitive writing. Those eight pages of misspelled words written without capitalization or punctuation near the end of the book have to be included in any anthology of the saddest things ever written. It’s a real tear-jerker.
As I wrote earlier. I consider this book a classic. I’m giving it a ‘5’ and adding it to my favorites. I wish I had read it sooner.
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As a child, the author (1933-2019) lived the impoverished life he wrote about, literally growing up in old slave quarters on a plantation. In his novels he used his background to create the fictional world of Bayonne in St. Raphael Parish, Louisiana. While A Lesson Before Dying is his most-read work, the general public may know him better for the TV movie made from one of his other works, The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman, modeled on his aunt who raised him. A Lesson Before Dying was also made into an HBO movie.
Top photo: French Creole people from frenchcreoles.com Photo of a shack that was a home, still standing on the plantation where the author grew up. From myneworleans.com The author from diverseeducation.com...more
A Black man recently released from the Korean War is heading back home across the United States. He is traveling from the West Coast[Edited 3/15/2022]
A Black man recently released from the Korean War is heading back home across the United States. He is traveling from the West Coast to a town in rural Georgia where his sister is in some kind of trouble.
The man has PTSD. He has ‘incidents.’ In fact he just escaped from a mental hospital where he was thrown in after one such unidentified incident. He is traveling south by train and bus, getting money from ministers of black churches. The south is still segregated so he often has to pee in the bushes because the restrooms are for whites only.
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He doesn’t really want to go back home because of memories of the upbringing he had. He grew up with parents who had little time for him and his sister. “Their parents were so beat by the time they came home from work, any attention they showed was like a razor – sharp, short and thin.” The grandparents they had were nasty to them. This is a tiny all-Black town where folks use wood stoves and take baths in a tub on the back porch.
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The man is haunted by nightmares of the atrocities that were inflicted on his comrades in Korea and by the atrocities that he and his comrades inflicted in turn, even on civilians, including children. It’s not pretty.
He is also haunted by other atrocious events from his childhood such as seeing a body being dumped from a wheel barrel into a shallow grave. We assume the buriers were white and the victim was Black.
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I liked the book. I’d characterize it as ‘haunting.’ It kept my attention - it’s short, only 145 pages. The author won the Nobel Prize in 1993, the first African American author to do so.
I note that Home is one of the author's lower-rated books on GR. Most highly-rated by GR readers are Song of Solomon and The Bluest Eye, while Beloved is her most widely read, by far.
Top photo from cdn.vox.com Rural Georgia in 1941 from wp.com.rediscovering-back-history The author from gannett.com...more
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