Midlife Crisis Bingo Recap: Group Dynamics

The whole class of sixth graders at my middle school back in 19XX were bused to a camp for a week-long outdoor educational experience. I look back with dismay that we were organized into Native American tribes*, in which we picked new Native names for ourselves, made jewelry out of natural objects, tromped through the woods, and played the occasional game of Capture the Flag. As you might imagine, one girl horrifyingly got her period for the first time, and others experienced some light hazing (tied up in dental floss while sleeping, sometimes also covered in shaving cream).

 

But my most profound memory from that time is the “solo experience.” Each camper was plopped in the woods somewhere and had to sit there, alone. There was some sort of writing task, as well, but what struck me most was the sound of absolute solitude. The high-pitched squeals of my classmates were gone. So too was their quiet judgement and the creak of shifting adolescent power structures. There was no distracting TV, no music videos, no record players. It was just quiet. And quiet was uncomfortable.

 

Fast forward several decades, and there was no more quiet. Parenthood brought the endless questions of toddlers, cloying children's songs, the forced practice of brass instruments for the school band, the holler and slam of teen angst. And then, Covid! We were all together, all day, endlessly. Remember those first months, where we were all getting used to the sound of too many people on Zoom, separately but simultaneously?

 

I love reading books about the noisy interactions of families, both biological and found. To fill the Group Dynamics bingo square, I chose Deacon King Kong by James McBride. Here’s the square description: You never get the front seat. There are so many secrets. Why didn’t she/he/they love you the way you deserve to be loved? You can’t stand to be apart, and you can’t stand to be together. Read a book about group life that makes you feel less alone, or one that reminds you about why you actually enjoy quarantine.

 

This novel involves a sprawling New York City housing project full of wacky characters of different backgrounds, most of whom live tightly packed together. The development of these characters is masterful, and while there is an active plot, this is really a book about meeting all these interesting people and coming to understand their role in the city's history. The author also wants us to see the humanity in each of them, despite their sometimes-questionable choices. Ultimately, this novel is one about people's deep commitment to a place and to others.

 

I suppose that midlife crisis-ing has involved figuring out my own deep commitments, and it turns out that figuring stuff out involves managing my new “solo time.” The kids are gone, and with them went all their structures and institutions and negotiations. No more carpool schedules. No more Saturday sporting events in the rain. No more curriculum nights. No more arguments about whose turn it is return the milk carton the refrigerator (This was a real thing; after one loud debate about milk carton politics, I equally loudly declared that there would be no more milk drinking in our household Ever! Again!).  In the kids’ absence, it’s quiet. I know that some of you are probably drooling with jealousy, but I am here to tell you that it’s weird.

 

I’ve been on a bit of a reading jag about solitude lately. I read Jenny O’Dell’s How to Do Nothing. It was very intellectual dive into the politics of our technologically connected life. She suggests that we are clicking our way into corporate algorithms and their financial pockets at the expense of our ability to creatively solve common problems. I read Katherine May’s Wintering, which is about the “fallow” spaces that exist between periods of creativity. And I also read The Art of the Wasted Day by Patricia Hampl, which is about the relationship between uninterrupted time and creative work. Together, these books provide a great reminder that solitude is a generative thing, and that I should absolutely, without question, put down my phone.

 

Also, for the record, milk drinking resumed in our home shortly after my decree. And still, no one put the carton away. It turns out that I’m a lousy dictator.

 

Burgermeister Meisterburger. Also a lousy dictator.

*I checked out my school’s website, and the outdoor program continues to this day. However, kids are now organized into “guilds” instead of tribes. Progress? They must be doing that same medieval history unit in social studies, the one where we had to make shields representing ourselves and our interests. I got a C on that project because I couldn’t adequately draw my deep interest in soap operas. At the time, my goal was to be a leading lady. I figured that people might see past the braces and the acne and the shy slouch and notice the glittery starlet within.

Blogtastic!: Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng

BLOGTASTIC! We’ve reached the last and final square in the 2017 Leaning Stack of Books Diversity Challenge. Today will feature Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng, which fulfills the category, “Book by an Asian-American Writer.”

The book blogosphere loves Ng’s books, because they are very accessible family dramas that offer entry into complicated conversations about identity. Her debut, Everything I Never Told You, was the Amazon Book of the Year in 2014. Little Fires Everywhere was the Amazon Best Novel of the year in 2017 an the Goodreads Choice Best Fiction Book of the Year in 2017. So y’all love your Ng.

I like Ng’s books. I do! But I don’t love them, and that always makes me feel weird. It’s kind of how I feel about Star Wars. Sure, I’ll go, but I have no interest in standing in line in costume at midnight to see it. 

photo credit: Andrew Gombert/European Pressphoto Agency at nyt.com

Little Fires Everywhere is a book that is trying to do several things. First, it is a satire of sorts of white, affluent culture. The novel takes place in Shaker Heights, Ohio, which is the author’s hometown. Ng takes aim at the pristine appearance of the setting, the rules and conventions, and the supposed progressive politics of the very rich people. Second, it is an exploration of the complexities of motherhood, and the novel features several mother/daughter relationships that poke at all the ways that being a “good mother” is difficult. And third, the novel wants to explore intercultural/interracial/interclass adoption, which brings all three themes together. Ambitious, right?

The problem I have is that I don’t think that Ng really trusts her audience to grapple with the complex moral issues at the center of the book. I’m not truly spoiling anything with this discussion, but STOP RIGHT NOW if you are worried about finding out too much about the story. 

The interracial/cultural/class adoption controversy involves a legal challenge between affluent/white adoptive parents and a low income, young, Asian birth mother. Class issues are central here, because the baby will certainly grow up with all sorts of material advantages if she stays with her adoptive parents. But the birth mother’s biological connection and cultural connection sit as important, contrasting advantages.  There’s so much interesting (and tragic) possibility in this subject matter, but I don’t think that Ng allows us to encounter the difficult heart of this problem. I wanted to feel challenged, but the adoptive parents are so completely clueless that I felt manipulated. What if the adoptive parents had surrounded the daughter with people and experiences that would help her connect to her heritage? What if there was genuine goodness – though different goodness - on both sides of the legal aisle? Then the reader would have a real dilemma, just as we do when this issue plays out in real courts, when we have to ask, “How does race matter?” and “How does class matter?”

So read this for your book club! There’s a ton to talk about, clearly. You can even wear your Star Wars costume while you do so.

Original from pinterest.com. Then I mangled it.

Here’s an interesting interview with Ng. And here she is in The Atlantic talking about the significance of Goodnight Moon: “If you imagine this book without the words that accompany the pictures, it would be a mystifying work—even a little bit terrifying.”

Blogtastic!: The Round House by Louise Erdrich

Today I’ll be writing about the fourth square on my 2017 Leaning Stack of Books Diversity Challenge bingo card: Book By An “Award Winning” Author of Color. I read The Round House by Louise Erdrich not because I wanted to, but because my high school aged sons were assigned to read this in class.  And I knew from reviews --EEK, the subject matter! And I don’t think this is a spoiler because it happens in Chapter 1:

The main character’s mother is raped, and the bad guy tries to set her on fire.

This struck me as a shocking topic for a tenth grade discussion until I realized that it’s probably the plot of half of the mass market thrillers on bookstore shelves. But still, trigger warning for this entire book!

The main character is a Native teenager who, as his family struggles with this crime, has to confront the idea of justice. And the crime happens at a place where location matters – will it be subject to United States federal law or tribal law? The question of rights and authority is literal, but it is also philosophical: can there ever be real justice for indigenous groups?

The other thing that is striking about this book is that it is a coming-of-age story. So much of this book did resemble novels that I had to read in high school: The Catcher in the Rye, A Separate Peace, etc. It is the terribleness of the crime that sets it apart, and the fact that a young boy has to live with that kind of violence. Is the reason that I was so shocked at this content because people like me (white, economically stable) can assume a protected childhood? Is this belief just another facet of privilege? There’s a connection here to Between the World and Me, in which Ta-Nehisi Coates’ writes a letter to his son about what it means to be young, black boy today. The message: The world might be safe for some people, but it’s not safe for you.

What would Holden Caulfield say about the fact that adults made an online quiz about him to help kids get good grades in school?

I also saw a connection with Jesmyn Ward’s Sing, Unburied, Sing (#4 on my Best of 2017 list). That book has coming-of-age elements (main character is a teen boy coming to understanding about his family), and it also confronts the idea of whether justice is possible for the characters. There are cultural ghosts in both novels that tether the current day story to history. I can imagine a fantastic book club discussion with the three books together (Erdrich, Coates, Ward) – assuming, of course, that your book club wants to dive into deepest literary sadness.

The Round House won the National Book Award in 2012. Erdrich’s 2009 novel, The Plague of Doves, was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize.  Love Medicine won the National Book Critics Award in 1984.

The internet just told me that Erdrich owns Birchbark Books in Minneapolis. It’s an independent bookstore that focuses on Native literature and community. So if you’re there for the Super Bowl, go check it out!

Here’s a 2012 New York Times interview with Erdrich about The Round House. And here’s a new one from Elle magazine. The interviewer is Margaret Atwood!

Blogtastic!: Janesville by Amy Goldstein

 We’ve made it to the “free square” on the 2017 Leaning Stack of Books Diversity Challenge bingo card. I’ve decided to choose the category, “Nonfiction About Race or Class in America.” And the book that fills that category is Janesville: An American Story by Amy Goldstein.

I listened to Janesville on audio, and come to think of it, audio books offered a great way for me to branch out from my go-to diet of fiction about sad white ladies. In the final half of 2017, I listened to three audio books that filled squares on my bingo card. Yay, broadened horizons!

Janesville is a true case of narrative ethnography -- only rarely do I feel like the author steps in the middle of it. It follows the trajectory of residents of Janesville, Wisconsin after the General Motors plant closes and offers a complicated story of the declining middle class. I was most struck by the hope that gets pinned on education (workforce retraining) as a way to bolster the middle class in the face of economic change -- and, in this case, its lack of impact.

This book will clearly appeal to people wondering what happened during the 2016 election, and frankly, I think it is better than Hillbilly Elegy by J.D. Vance – which was the book that has received the most praise for trying to explain the mindset that propelled some economically struggling white people to become Trump’s base. Goldstein brings a journalist’s eye and craft to her work, while Vance is talking about his family and his neighbors and his own history. Janesville is part of this same conversation because of Wisconsin’s Electoral College vote outcome and also because it is Paul Ryan’s hometown. It is notable, however, that this is NOT a book about Trump, and Goldstein doesn’t even mention him until the epilogue. Plus, Janesville voted Democratic during the election.

Several reviewers have noted that Janesville needs a part 2. Understanding the state of our politics requires grappling with race, and Goldstein does not do that with much depth. It’s true that the Janesville community is over 95% white, but the existence of the all-white communities is part of the story of racial segregation and exclusion that is central to American economic history. Goldstein does give a nod to the fact that Beloit, Wisconsin – just down the freeway from Janesville – is more racially diverse (15% African American and 17% Latino). The politics that led to a region that has those racialized elements is important.

Of course, there might be a bigger question at stake for readers who pick up a book about Wisconsin. What is the appeal of cheese curds? Why?!?!?!

 

Vat O'Curds

Valentine's Day Themed Curds?????

Here’s a link to a Marketplace interview with Goldstein, with an edited print transcript included. And here’s a review that I liked from The New Yorker.  Janesville won the Financial Times and McKinsey Business Book of the Year for 2017.

Blogtastic!: Dear Ijeawele: A Feminist Manifesto In Fifteen Suggestions by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Today I’m focusing on bingo square #2 on the 2017 Leaning Stack of Books Diversity Challenge: Nonfiction About Gender or Gender Roles. Dear Ijeawele, or A Feminist Manifesto in Fifteen Suggestions by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie is a letter the author writes to a friend about how to raise a feminist.

Like in her fiction (Americanah is my favorite!), Adichie is writing about her understanding of both Nigerian and Western/American contexts. Growing up a feminist is both culturally specific and more universally political, and it was interesting to think about the idea of equality with that in mind.

I listened to this book on audio, but I have since read excerpts of it in print. Though I am enjoying the way I can grow my stack of books by listening to audio versions in the car, I will say that audio does this book a disservice.  Adichie is a powerful speaker. I have used her TED Talk, "The Danger of a Single Story," in my classes. THIS is the voice readers need to hear in their head when they read this book. The American audio reader sounds particularly disconnected from the letter in her hands.

I listened to this book before the #MeToo events of this fall, but the book is even more profound with that movement in mind. Raising a child is a political act, and it helps to be thoughtful about our language (princess?) and about binaries (can you be both feminist and feminine? Or are those opposite constructs?) I was especially compelled with her critique of the idea of “likeability.” We certainly expect powerful women to be likeable, but we don’t expect the same of men (think: 2016 election). Here’s a little excerpt, which I took from her Facebook page:

Please do not ever put this pressure on your daughter. We teach girls to be likeable, to be nice, to be false. And we do not teach boys the same. This is dangerous. Many sexual predators have capitalized on this. Many girls remain silent when abused because they want to be nice. Many girls spend too much time trying to be ‘nice’ to people who do them harm. Many girls think of the ‘feelings’ of those who are hurting them… We have a world full of women who are unable fully to exhale because they have for so long been conditioned to fold themselves into shapes to make themselves likeable.

Helping a child become a good person is such hard work. Adichie reminds us that consciousness-raising requires being conscious of all the little things. Now that the holidays are over, I'd like to add a 16^th suggestion. Can we get real about Rudolf the Red Nosed Reindeer? I think it might be time to stop celebrating Rudolf's story – or at least call out his sexist dad – don’t you think?

I recently listened to an interesting Atlantic Interview podcast featuring Adichie and Ta-Nehisi Coates. I downloaded it from Apple Podcasts, but the YouTube link gives you the audio. And here’s an article about her from The Guardian.

Blogtastic! The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas

Today I’m focusing on bingo square #1 on the 2017 Leaning Stack of Books Diversity Challenge: YA Novel By a Writer of Color. It’s possible that The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas is the only YA novel I read last year. I do find that I read fewer of them these days, despite having young adults in my house, because I’m not much into dystopia or dragons. Next year I might put a new square on the bingo card: YA Novel About Humans in a Real Life Situation. But, of course, the line between fictional dystopia and real life is getting more and more blurry…

I was drawn to The Hate U Give because of the buzz around it, but also because it ties into one of the content strands in the courses I teach. The last few years, my students and I have looked at Michael Brown’s death in Ferguson. I teach about education policy, and the purpose of focusing on this event has been to look at the idea of “separation” as a tool. What does segregation do in our society? Why do we intentionally separate people, and to what end? Together, we read parts of James D. Anderson’s Education of Blacks in the South, 1860-1935 to look at the logic Southerners used when they excluded African Americans from the public school system (and how African Americans fought back).  We listen to the This American Life podcast, "The Problem We All Live With, Part 1," to see the modern day version of that problem in the schools surrounding Ferguson, MO. And we read parts of We Gon’ Be Alright: Notes on Race and Resegregation by Jeff Chang to see how streets and towns and bylaws and policies were created in the Ferguson area (and most places) to invent and reinvent separation again and again.

But if I’m honest, it was not until I read Ta-Nehisi Coates’ Between the World and Me that I truly felt what it meant that the law is not on everyone’s side. The distinction between feeling and understanding is important for me. The reason that this book affected me so much is because Coates is writing a letter to his child. He is preparing him for the world, just as I have to prepare my own kids for the world. But in this letter, he is telling his son that he is not safe, that he has to carry the burden of society’s distrust and disdain.  And I felt my privilege in not having to write my own sons such a letter, and I felt through his words the pain of that process. That is what a good book can do, right? In some cases, you see your own truth validated, and in others, you get to walk in someone else’s shoes, or, perhaps, live in their skin.

The Hate U Give, which was nominated for a National Book Award for Young People’s Literature last year, is a debut YA novel that looks at the murder of an unarmed black boy by police. The story focuses on an African American teen that lives in a black neighborhood but goes to a mostly white, suburban school. When she witnesses the death of her friend, she has to navigate her experience of injustice in both contexts.

I always have to dial down my inner critic’s voice when I read YA, because I tend to feel like there’s just too much going on. Too many plot lines! Too many characters! But I suppose that’s what adolescence is -- so much simultaneous intensity. What did really interest me was the move in some communities to block access to this book, as if adults should shield kids from the world they already live in. Or is there a presumption that “YA readers” are white and should be kept separate from racial violence*?

Here’s a great article about Thomas from the Guardian.

*The reason the book was removed from school shelves in Katy, Texas was, supposedly, “explicit language.”

The Leaning Stack of Books Diversity Challenge Bingo, 2017 Edition

We are a month into 2018, and I am still considering last year. And before I stop accidentally writing 2017 on all my checks, I thought I’d revisit The Leaning Stack of Books Diversity Challenge.

I started this challenge in 2015, when I was trying to read more broadly and encounter more points of view. The purpose of the challenge was to be more intentional in my reading life, and so I created a drinking game for myself. If I filled a row on my homemade bingo card, I would take a drink and holler, “Blogtastic!” The members of my family already think I’m pretty unusual, and the teens, in particular, aren’t thrilled when I have weird bookish outbursts. But too bad, suckers! I’m working on being a better reader and a better person.

2015 date changed to 2017. I haven't updated the card or fixed the typos because I'm lazy.

As you know, 2017 was not a good blogging year for me. It also wasn’t a great reading year, and I didn’t attempt to achieve any goals. But hey! It turns out that I filled THREE columns/rows on my Bingo card!* In honor of that success, I will post every day this week, highlighting one of the books. I have decided to focus on the center column, because that one allows me to write about some books that I didn’t cover in my “Best of 2017” list a couple of weeks ago.  Many of those books could easily fulfill squares in this challenge (4 out of 5 of them, actually). 

If you’re looking to jump down an internet rabbit hole, the We Need Diverse Books public Facebook page always has great links to articles about diversity and publishing --  not that I'd advocate internetting when you could be reading, of course.

This is a shot glass, in case someone wants to send me a gift. Cafepress.com

*Note: Three rows = three drinks! Drunk blooging is dangerous. Blogging, not blooging. Whatever (hiccup).

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.

The Top 5 of 2017: #4

I generally don’t like books that feature ghosts, and this is a novel about hauntings. But the ghosts in Sing, Unburied, Sing by Jesmyn Ward are the hauntings of injustices, and they explain the legacy of deep racism on a particular family in a particular place. On the surface this is kind of a road trip book – a family goes to pick up their father from prison in Mississippi. But while most road trip books are about the freedom of the open road, the family here isn’t yet free. The significance of the journey from small segregated town to prison is brutal.

Ward deserves all her notoriety, which includes two National Book Awards (including one for this novel) and a MacArthur Genius Award.  She approaches storytelling like a poet -- there is not a single word in her book that doesn’t matter.  Spoiler Alert: This idea will be a contrast with my Best of 2017 #s 3-1. Stay tuned!

So, basically, I knew this book would be stunning when I sat down to read it. And stunning it was, though I will admit to being more captivated with 2011’s Salvage the Bones. Reading a Ward novel is like going to a restaurant with a master chef. Every bite is meaningful and flavorful and packed with goodness. There’s no extra fat or additives, and you don’t feel bloat at the end. Her writing is, simply, brilliant.

And I’ve been struck this year how we’ve come to associate brilliance and good ideas and smart people and intellectual development with either snobbery or dullness. “Charisma” has come to mean, for the lack of a better word, shouty. I wonder what our world would look like if we read Jesmyn Ward interviews in People magazine and heard her thoughts on CNN – rather than, well, the folks that we do.

This is for sale at zazzle.com. Yay, captalism?

You can read more about Ward here and here and here.

The Top 5 of 2017: #5

This choice might come as a surprise to those of you who know me well. Reading With Patrick: A Teacher, a Student, and a Life-Changing Friendship by Michelle Kuo is a nonfiction account of a very young teacher who does her service with Teach For America in the rural south. I think that the Teach for America organization is problematic in so many ways, most notably for its role in the privatization of the education system and the ongoing policy attack on experienced teachers. But. BUT. I have to say that I was riveted by this account of a young woman’s struggle with her own idealism and privilege in the face of injustice. I enjoyed thinking about the larger philosophical questions that sat just underneath the surface of her writing – What is the role of education if there’s not a larger “point?” What counts as "achievement?" What if you will never see growth gains? Good scores? Is the learning itself – and the relationship that inspires it – valuable on its own terms?

Idealism has been on my mind over the course of this past year. My belief that an ordinary person can have an impact in our society has been shaken, and I find that I am drawn to stories of people who have that faith. It seems as if that is what Kuo is wrestling with here, too.  It’s not as if this book doesn’t have problems, but for me, the problems were the things that generated my questions. And I need to keep asking questions, to keep caring about people and the society we create.

Reading With Patrick was part of my foray into audio books this year. I am in the car a lot, and I have found that I add a solid handful of books to my cosmic shelves this way.

Here’s a little interview with Kuo from the New York Times.

Review of The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead

The Underground Railroad, by Colson Whitehead, is stunning. It really deserves a second read to see all the images and layers and questions, but there’s no way I’m jumping back into this harrowing story right now. Of course, one of Whitehead’s points as he takes his reader on a journey away from slavery is that this story is also the present. The reader should be devastated about this past and also about what we’re doing in our contemporary world.

The book follows Cora, a slave who escapes a Georgia plantation. The first 50 or so pages of the novel is straight-up historical fiction, but then Whitehead creates an alternate world in which the underground railroad is an actual railroad, with stations and trains. Moreover, he gets fancy with time periods. For instance, Cora leaves pre-Civil War Georgia and lands in a version of South Carolina that has skyscrapers and elements of history from the early 20^th century.  The train travels to other states, too, and all of them incorporate different elements of social relations, racism, and the historical record. 

This book has all the terrible elements you’d expect from a story about slavery – so be warned that this will be a difficult read. I had a particularly interesting moment about two-thirds of the way through the story that reminded me of my experience reading A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara. When I read that novel, I was struck by how much of a hopeful reader I am. I really need to believe in the possibility of happily-ever-after. It became increasingly clear in A Little Life that I was going to need to change my expectations. In The Underground Railroad, I also had a prick of awareness that “the North” might not be the magic terminus of this railroad and this story. And that is part of Cora’s experience here, too.  Hope drives her along but her experiences provide evidence that the hopefulness might be fruitless. (Discussion question: Is this ultimately a hopeful book?)

The Underground Railroad is the second terrific novel I’ve read this year about slavery and its legacy. Homegoing, by Yaa Gyasi, is also brilliant. It would be interesting to read these two books together and discuss the authors’ different approaches and interpretations. However, I’d sandwich a book about rainbows and unicorns in the center, because otherwise your heart might not be able to handle it.

You can find an good interview with Whitehead here (some spoilers included). The Underground Railroad is the current Oprah Bookclub pick and a 2016 National Book Award finalist.

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.