Brothers under the skin

I’ve just finished two books chosen with my patented speed-browsing library technique (see earlier post) and it was a gratifying, if odd, mix.

One is the autobiography “Black is the New White” by Paul Mooney, a groundbreaking stand-up comedian in his own right, who wrote and inspired much of the late Richard Pryor’s comedic work. The other is “Cheever: A Life” by Blake Bailey, about writer John Cheever. The latter is usually called something along the lines of “the foremost…” or “the defining…” writer of post-World War II America. (Both books were published in 2009.)

On the face of it, these men could not be more different. Yet, as it turns out, there are some real and remarkable similarities.

Mooney is a man of color who refused to knuckle under to white Hollywood and who bulldozed barriers that opened the way for Eddie Murphy, Dave Chappelle, Wanda Sykes and countless other smart, hilarious, definitely-not-Caucasian performers. Cheever was the ultra-WASP; the suburban family man who went on to craft fiction that won every coveted prize available, and whose novels and short stories changed the way readers read, teachers taught, editors edited and writers wrote.

Both men were ground-breakers, originals. Both were fueled by powerful anger at the so-called ruling class: Mooney versus white America; Cheever against the established squires of society and the educated men of letters he so envied.

Mooney found a way to make his otherness matter; Cheever did the same, although through a much more tortured route. He wrote to keep his demons at bay, hiding behind a Brooks Brothers facade, terrified that his closet bisexuality, alcoholism and various self-identified failings would come to light and ruin him.

I moved between the books depending on my mood. I like to keep a serious book and a lighter one going at the same time. As it turns out, they are both serious books. They are both about men who shaped the culture in ways never imagined before their work came along.

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Simon Spotlight Entertainment., 264 pages, ISBN: 9781416587958

Knopf, 770 pages; ISBN: 9781400043941