Tag: novel

The Nitty Gritty: A Remotely Intellectual Review of A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

I pulled this novel out of a stack being cleaned, sorted, and packaged for the bookstore. I try not to do that very often. If I did, we’d be inundated with books  (we already are, truthfully). But I’ve heard about this book since high school, and somehow managed not to have read it yet. So, out it came.

I guess I expected fireworks. The book is pretty famous, after all. But it took me a minute (or a few chapters) to get into it. And then, I was in.

It’s not a page-turning, wait with baited-breath kind of story. It is honest. And uncomfortable. It’s sweet and rough, gut-punching and tender. It’s human. Painfully and beautifully so.

What makes A Tree Grows in Brooklyn so brilliant–and powerful–is the unflinching deconstruction of deeply held notions about poverty, simply by describing daily life for the working poor. Smith constructs a compassionate (but still relatively neutral) narrator to traverse class customs and behaviors, breaking down stereotypes and offering the reader insight.

Francie, the child of an alcoholic father and a work weary mother, feels injustices deeply. She can also get “drunk” on a flower or a perfect night sky. My favorite line in the book is Francie’s: “The last time of anything has the poignancy of death itself.”

Yes! I’ve felt this my whole life, but I’ve never known anyone else to give voice to that feeling. Until now. And that might be one of the best gifts of a good book.

The Nitty Gritty: A Remotely Intellectual Review of Parable of the Sower

Holy Hell Fire.

I haven’t read something that shook me to the core like this since I read The Handmaid’s Tale in college. I wish every person over 18 in the United States had to read this novel. Because it’s scary as fuck. And I wish I didn’t believe Octavia Butler had prophesied our future as a country–but it seems more and more plausible by the day.

I picked up the book simply because I was embarrassed to say I hadn’t ready any of Butler’s books. I picked Parable of the Sower for no other reason than the cover made it clear the protagonist would be a young black woman–she kinda looked like she was going to kick some ass.

By the end of the first page, I forgot I was reading a book. No time necessary to settle into the story or to adjust to the narrator/protagonist. There was just the story. And, Good GOD, what a story.

It’s a futuristic, dystopian novel. Don’t expect to be spared blood, gore, or pain. If you are too fragile–or jaded–to be horrified, look somewhere else. But, if you want what feels like an objective view of our future if we don’t halt civil rights infringements, the ever-evolving militarization of our police forces, rampant racism, and escalating climate change–read on.

Do not read this right before bed. And find someone who will listen as you sort your feelings about this novel. Because you’ll have feelings. Big ones. Necessary ones, I believe.

The Nitty Gritty: A Remotely Intellectual Review of Grant Park (Leonard Pitts, Jr)

I didn’t immediately get swept away in Grant Park’s narrative. The cover promised a lot: a thriller that critically examines race in America. The thriller part never quite delivered for me. But the nuanced look at race in America, that rang a lot truer. I’m glad I hung in for it.

Leonard Pitts, Jr. wrote columns for the Miami Herald for years. And it shows. He’s able to write characters that grapple with racial issues (internally & externally)–as well as expose the less noble parts of folks exasperated by the national conversation about race (or lack thereof). He lets you inside the heads of a successful black journalist and a kind-of-successful, white newspaper editor–both of whom are fed up with the racial tableau in America. But, because this is a good piece of writing, nothing about the two men is quite as straight forward as it seems.

As a white reader, I never felt preached at. But I also didn’t feel pandered to. Pitts showed dogged determination in giving his readers an honest look at what it’s like to be black in America. Pitts creates a narrative that demonstrates that no group exists as a monolith–not black folks, not white folks–and that we can still be redeemed. But redemption means wrestling with our own selves first, conquering our own demons. And then listening to each other. One by one. Redemption isn’t wholesale. According to Pitts, the fight might be won one soul at a time.

What Do You Want to Be?

Adults always ask kids what they want to be when they grow up. What a weird question. It’s not like kids even have any idea about all the things they could be in the world. When adults pose this question, they’re invariably inquiring about career choice–as if a job or a career could possibly define a person. What if a kid wants to be brave? Or curious? But these answers would never do–adults would just chuckle and ask patronizingly–again—yes, but what do you want to be? 

Adults always ask kids what they want to be when they grow up. What a weird question. It’s not like kids even have any idea about all the things they could be in the world. When adults pose this question, they’re invariably inquiring about career choice–as if a job or a career could possibly define a person. What if a kid wants to be brave? Or curious? But these answers would never do–adults would just chuckle and ask patronizingly–again—yes, but what do you want to be?

At 8 years old, I announced–completely unbidden–I was going to be a writer when I grew up. This wasn’t some made up answer to entertain an adult audience. This was my truth. I was 8 years old. I loved reading above all else. And one day I wanted to make that magic with words. I wanted to write books that kids would fall in love with.

The adult privy to this revelation laughed. “Well, what are you planning to do to make money?”

I was crushed. I was a super-sensitive kid. If an adult thought I couldn’t be a writer, well then they were probably right.

I never mentioned wanting to be a writer again. Even as I poured through the 1966 World Book Encyclopedia to pen my first book, “The Little Suitcase” based on–you guessed it–a suitcase who travels the world, I said not one word about writing to anyone.

Not when my essay won an award at the Broward County Fair.

Not when I aced AP Language and AP Literature.

Not when I got my degree in Literature (which I supplemented with a degree in Communications–you know, so I could make money).

In fact, my default joke became “I critique other people’s writing so I don’t have to do any of my own.” Which was bullshit. I wrote academic papers all the time. And, trust me, it is an art form to make that kind of writing accessible and engaging. I loved literature. And I lived for the rush of writing papers and putting something out into the world–something that I felt like made a difference.

I finished graduate school.

And I didn’t write again for 5 years.

The first thing I wrote after all that time was a blog. Only my friends knew it existed. But it rekindled something—a belief that I could DO this. That I could write pieces that people would connect with. That my writing could make people feel and experience things.

I started writing again in earnest in January 2015. I sat with my friends in front of a cozy fire on New Years Eve, and I told them that I wanted to be a writer. That admission felt huge to me–and so very vulnerable. But I put it out there–and I felt the weight of accountability for this intention I’d set for the upcoming year.

Writing was my salvation when Simon transitioned. It helped me make sense of him, me, us… Writing about Jane helps me process and appreciate what she’s learning, how she’s growing. Truth be told, if I don’t write about it, I kind of feel like it doesn’t exist.

Once I got comfortable putting myself out there, it came back to me: the desire to write a book. For kids. A book that would change a kid’s world. Right about that time, I stumbled on NaNoWriMo. I made it halfway through my first novel (a middle grades book about whether biology or love makes family), and I quit. A novel is a giant undertaking. I’d never written so much as a short story. I may have jumped in a bit over my head. (It’s kind of my way.)

In July 2017, I signed up for Camp NaNoWriMo in July. And I wrote an entire novel–35,000 words–from start to finish. I loved every second that I spent writing those characters. I loved how they surprised me. I was enchanted by the way they evolved and discovered themselves… I was completely hooked.

But here’s the most surprising part (to me, at least): I have put myself out there time and time again for this book. I’ve opened myself to critique and rejection–both of which I am notoriously bad at–for the sake of getting this novel into the world. And I continue to surprise myself in this process.

I’m undertaking a major revision of my novel during this April’s Camp NaNoWriMo. Here’s why:

1) I got a rejection from an agent, which was really more of a “Not yet. Needs work. You started in the wrong place.” And I didn’t die. I was overwhelmed with gratitude that she even responded to me. And I took her suggestions as evidence of her belief that, with work, this would be a book worth publishing.

2) A friend/mentor of mine looked at the first 5 chapters of the novel. And she told me it needed work–like some pretty serious work. Again, totally didn’t die. I didn’t even crawl off to lick my wounds. I just started revising. Because that’s what writers do.

I wish someone had told me when I was 8 that I could be anything, do anything. But that isn’t my story. And life has become, for me, a matter of owning my own story–and the stories I want to put out into the world.