Archives for Race & Class

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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Order these or other books from Powell’s using these icons and Type Like The Wind gets a small credit. Which enables me to buy more books. And write about them. We all win.

Simon Spotlight Entertainment., 264 pages, ISBN: 9781416587958

Knopf, 770 pages; ISBN: 9781400043941

My local library branch shelves the newly acquired books on a long bookcase right inside the front door. The books are divided into fiction and nonfiction, but otherwise no distinctions are made.

I’ve developed the habit of zipping through the section, picking a few books for late-night recreational reading based on such deep thinking as liking the cover design, typeface, title and story blurb inside the front cover.

I quickly reject any book:

–touted as the tale of a family “torn apart” by a tragic accident;

–about women who triumph after being dumped by their dirtbag husbands; or

–set in the future.

Some things get grabbed without hesitation:

–trashy novels or history set in Great Britain, past or present;

–Cop stories and military memoirs;

–New takes on race relations or the 1960s Civil Rights era;

–Stuff on FDR, Lyndon Johnson or Muhammad Ali.

I confess, and here I reveal myself to be even more…well, mercurial would be kind: I also tend to pull out novels with (1) good titles; and (2) author names that appear to be Jewish or Irish.

The latest great score to come out of this imperfect approach is “Hold Love Strong,” a novel by Matthew Aaron Goodman and published in 2009 by Simon & Schuster. Goodman’s book met a number of my criteria–grabby cover, arresting blurb, likely Jewish author name, good title, race-relations subject matter.

This is a wonderful novel about an African American boy named Abraham Singleton who must navigate his blighted neighborhood, skirt the crackheads, cops and other dangerous types, and sort out the complicated feelings and demands woven into that thing we call family.

The book opens this way:

“The first pain came at noon but she didn’t tell anybody about it. My mother was thirteen and she went about the afternoon being every part of such a precarious age. She watched TV. She popped pimples and studied her face in the bathroom mirror. She listened to the radio, sang along with songs, and laughed along with the afternoon DJs. She wrote in her diary, ‘I still can’t Believe! I’m pregnant…’ “

The word “lyrical” is ubiquitous in blurb copy on new fiction. In this case, it’s accurate. Goodman has a very rare gift for telling harsh truths in beautiful language–without losing veracity, without being sentimental, without straining to take on the voice of a young boy using a strictly vernacular style.

The nimble young human brain, and heart, are capable of such rapid, wild swings and shockingly wise insights. Capturing them is something of a miracle. Goodman does it.

My rec-reading selection system may be a little flimsy, but it worked this time. Check this one out.