The Top 5 of 2017: #3

If this 800 page novel had stopped after the first half, it would have been my favorite book of the year. I read it during the last week of December, basically non-stop. I had even planned to title this post, “You have never even heard of my favorite book of the year!”

You haven’t heard of The Castle Cross the Magnet Carter by Kia Corthron because it’s a first novel with a clunky, weird title and way too huge for anyone’s book club. I stumbled upon it on a independent bookstore aisle end cap with a sign underneath it that said, “Read this. Now. I mean it.” And I’m really good at following directions.

The story follows the lives of four brothers, and the reader knows they will meet at some point over the course of the novel.  Two are black and come from Maryland. Two are white and come from Alabama. All four live in segregated contexts – but it is the nuance of these contexts that makes the author’s exploration so interesting. What did friendship across race look like, feel like? What did it mean to go to separate schools but to play together in the afternoons?

Ultimately, this is a book about dignity. What happens when we don’t treat people as full human beings? And this story is not, magically, simply black and white.

Now for the bad news. Corthron wanted to write an epic novel here, and ultimately, her story loses itself somewhat in that ambition. You know how yesterday I compared Sing, Unburied, Sing to fine dining? Well, The Castle Cross... is a delicious all-you-can-eat buffet after a long hiking trip. So tasty, but by the second half, I began to bloat. There’s just too much, and the push to cover every intersectionality (e.g. the history of the gay rights movement, disability history, etc.) strains the plot. And the issue that pulled this novel to #3 from its perch at #1 is a giant, GIANT (and unnecessary) coincidence at the end.

Still, this was an amazing read. I recommend it with all of my ringing bells (though if you have problems reading about violence of any kind – warning!). This would be fantastic for a long (very long) plane ride. I was riveted.

The Castle Cross… won the 2016 Center for Fiction First Novel Prize, and as a side note, Corthron is in her 50s. Who says youngsters have all the fun?

You can read an interview with Corthron here.

Review of Another Brooklyn By Jacqueline Woodson

Another Brooklyn is Jacqueline Woodson’s new novel – but is it a novel? I don’t know. Woodson is queen of the “prose/poem,” and Another Brooklyn strikes me as a genre-blending work. It is short – just 173 pages, with brief sections of text and wide margins. The language is spare and unflinching.

My first exposure to Woodson’s work was with 2014’s Brown Girl Dreaming. That memoir earned her the National Book Award for Young People’s Literature. Another Brooklyn is marketed as an “adult” novel, but it is a reasonable choice for older teenagers, too. There is sexual content and some serious themes, but this coming-of-age story will still appeal to younger audiences.

The novel is a snapshot of growing up in Brooklyn in the 1970s. The main character, August, describes her friendship with four other girls, pulling the reader through the emotions of being  teenagers grappling with family tragedy, first love, religion, and betrayal. In this sense, this book has an “every girl” quality about it. But it is also a story particular to African Americans growing up in this particular time period. August is navigating her family’s journey from the rural south to the urban Northeast. She is navigating issues of class in the African American community. She watches her neighborhood experience white flight and the effects of segregation.  The strength of the story lies in Woodson’s ability to pull the universal and the particular together in a seamless way.

But if I’m honest, I wish that Woodson had put the meet some more meat on the bones of this work. I wanted her to fill up the pockets between the lines. There’s a distance that the prose/poem style creates that I wanted to bridge. I wanted to fall into this story, and the beautiful-ness of it pushed me away.

Critics don’t seem to share this concern. Another Brooklyn was recently longlisted for this year’s National Book Award.

Here’s an interesting interview with Woodson, where she addresses Daniel Handler’s infamous watermelon joke at the National Book Award ceremony. And here's her “By the Book” interview in a recent New York Times Book Review.