What I was reading in April
Between the World and Me, Ta-Nehisi Coates
Tell Me How it Ends, Valeria Luiselli
High Fidelity, Nick Hornby
What We Do Now: Standing up for your values in Trump’s America
In her 2015 review of Between the World and Me Shani O. Hilton expressed concern and disappointment that the book would be read (was being read) by white readers who would then take it as a defining book of blackness. Concerned that black male writing and black masculinity would define blackness for readers who couldn’t or wouldn’t take it as one person’s story, Hilton worried that black women would continue to be pushed to the margins of blackness.
Brit Bennett touched on Hilton’s observations in her response to Between the World and Me, remarking that “books by black authors are always asked to be more representative than they ought to be” but asking of the elision of women from this – and so many other narratives – “Whose vulnerability is horrifying and haunting, worthy of marching and protest? Whose is natural and inevitable?”.
I read Hilton’s review soon after it was published, and bought Between the World and Me when it came out, but didn’t read it for another two years. There was a lot of buzz around the book, but I was also concerned that I wouldn’t read the book properly. That I was coming from a misguided place, that I wasn’t ready to meet this work, that I would be guilty of what Hilton and Bennett feared – taking this book as a definition of blackness and applying its lessons poorly. It’s a shame, because Between the World and Me is, as Toni Morrison’s blurb claims, ‘required reading’ – the writing is so sharp and so clear and the story Coates unfolds of his own awakening is so powerful. There’s so much to learn from Coates’ exploration of disembodiment and unending unendurable fear for existing in a black male body. It’s a shame to have put off reading this book for two years, to have lost two years of this book in my life. Maybe we don’t always read books with the attention they deserve. Maybe we come at them wrong sometimes. But avoiding books that challenge or alarm isn’t the answer. Anyway, I wish I had read this book earlier
On a more removed note, it was interesting to read Between the World and Me two years after it was published, after the buzz and explosive popularity. As I was reading, and as Coates’ explored his own development and shifts in identity, describing his identities emerging out of each other, not the same but relying on the selves that came before, I kept thinking back to an interview between Coates and Neil Drumming on “This American Life.” Two friends talking about another identity shift, figuring out what’s changed and what’s stayed the same…
Tell Me How it Ends is a short book, structured by the 40 questions immigrant children (or refugees, as Luiselli makes a strong argument they should be called), are asked upon entering the country. It’s a pretty devastating book – the refrigerated rooms where immigrants are detained. The subtle biases running through the questions. The sheer number of children who arrive in the US from Mexico, Central America, South America. And of those, how few are even eligible to apply for refugee status or visas. It’s heartbreaking, but it’s so beautifully told. Luiselli notes that she’s a writer, that writers tell stories, that this is how she’s helping these children, by writing about them and the things they’ve seen, survived, escaped. It’s immensely persuasive. It reminded me of an episode of On the Media from earlier this year about border patrol at the US – Canada border. About how terrible things can be, and and just how fast they can become terrible but how far away and opaque it can seem if you’re reading new reports. A lot of humanity is lost when talking about border walls and border crossing and policy and legislation and security measures – Luiselli returns it in a big way.
High Fidelity is a movie that’s come to mean a lot to me because it’s a favorite of a friend and it’s become one of our movies, part of our shorthand. We toss around a “Call me shallow, but it’s the fuckin’ truth” when we need to convey a gross opinion with a veneer of self-disgust. I picked the book up because I wanted a break, and because Hornby is the reason I’m writing these at all – a huge reason I was able to start writing or reading much of anything after two years of not feeling up to it.
I’m still learning how to read again as an adult and part of that is understanding what I’m looking for out of a given book. Hornby returns to this idea regularly in his “Stuff I’ve been Reading” column – your mind knowing what it needs, meat and potatoes or vegetables or chips…this was more of a chip, but Hornby is so good at writing that it didn’t feel totally indulgent. I wish I could put some gloss on it – High Fidelity is actually apropos for this era where a shallow dismissal of everyone else is the codeword for cool, where we’re all internet experts and able to filter out anyone based on a shifting set of criteria we decide in the moment, where what we like IS what we’re like, and that if you apply it to political affairs….but no. I mean, sure, maybe that’s an argument that’s worth making, but also – no, I just read this book because I wanted a break from the “Reading for Resistance” bookshelf at my local bookstore. Call me shallow, but it’s the fuckin’ truth.
What we do Now is a collection of essays, written immediately after the election of Donald Trump as 45th President of the United States. There are essays from politicians to organizers to religious leaders and leaders of justice organizations and other people we might want to hear from at this particular moment. It’s a pretty mixed bag – some are really well-written; some are really boring. The final essay, from Dave Eggers, struck a chord. He talks about the night of the election and the days that follow it, recounting a busy stretch of sleeplessness and anxiety, of coming together, of working with students. In one heartbreaking moment, a student shares some of his writing with Eggers under which he has written “what do you think? Am I any good? Should I keep doing this?”
I can’t quite figure out why this puts a lump in my throat, except that I want to protect that sweet high school kid and tell him that yes he should keep on writing. I want to tell him that we need him and his voice. I want to tell him we need to hear from him.
Maybe it goes back to Luiselli’s steadfast dedication to continuing to write, to using her skills to tell grim truths in compelling ways. Maybe it goes back to needing as many people telling their stories and making art as possible, making it impossible to think of one story as defining an entire culture or race. Or maybe it’s some (naïve?) belief that we need art, that art makes a difference, is what the moment calls for.
(Listen to “Let’s Talk About Me Baby: Lin Manuel Miranda” to hear someone also say that art makes a difference, is a fair action to take)
Or maybe it’s because I wish I had had the courage to ask if my work was any good. Because I still want someone to reach out and tell me that I should keep writing and thinking, that that’s vital. Because I want someone to say that to everyone.