TL;DR
A slice of life from the perspective of a bi-racial 15 year old in New York reflecting on the events that caused him and his mother to leave Georgia and his father 7 years earlier.
Book Thoughts
It’s not often that we think of American history in terms of dynasties. Perhaps our democratic structure makes the idea of empires feel antithetical. However, the violent response of white-southerns towards black-Americans fighting for their freedom has the guttural bitter taste of a group trying to hold on to a dying empire, of the desperate resentment that comes when one feels like the ground shifting from under you, even if that ground is soaked with blood.
Mainstream history takes an (incorrect) “peaceful transition approach” when it discusses --with brevity, the civil rights movement. It talks about it as inevitable and well-received, but what this book does well is show that it was neither of those things. Rather, people formed their whole lives and family structures based on the assumption that while the civil war had ended, the dynasty continued. The civil rights movement ended that dynasty astoundingly, strategically, and with a reverberating philosophy that I wish was better taught to the American people. Still that shift -- wasn’t inevitable, it was fought for, people died for it, and people resented and still resent that it shifted with any decree of success. I wish America would talk about that too.
In any case I’ve gotten off topic, the strength of this book is the fact that both 15 year old Huey and 8 year old Huey are still in the processes of sorting out what they’ve experienced. So they’re unreliable narrators. This unreliability creates a decent amount of dramatic irony, as we the readers know what’s up, while Huey or the Hueys are left in cloudy uncertainty, despite older Huey often fronting as if that isn’t the case.It adds an underlying feeling of unease and horror that is palpable to the reader.
The book is also an interesting examination of whiteness, of the fragility of exclusivity, and the mental gymnastics it takes to create a social structure so antithetical to realities of human instinct. (that’s right I said it, people think racism stems from basic human instinct— I disagree, I think its far too complex and difficult to manage). And lastly, it makes you think about love. About the nature of it, and about its intersection with the society one lives in.
I definitely think its worth reading, but heads up it's got dark themes-- and it's not sci-fi so, the darkness can kind of sit with you in a way that’s different from say and Unkindness of Ghosts. Just remember to watch your mental health while reading, and once again, I recommend a friend or friends for your literary journey--- after all it's dangerous to go alone ;) .
If you and your campaigns are looking for some questions to kick-off your discussion, try out the following:
Does love transcend society or no… or maybe sometimes, but not always?
How does reading the book from the perspective of a child influence the story dynamics?
In a country that has a history of the “one-drop rule” -- how does society change when we abandoned that false simplicity