Going to Meet the Man by James Baldwin | Book Review

There are eight short stories in Going to Meet the Man. The first is The Rockpile, a tale of a small family and its abusive patriarch. In The Outing a young black adolescent boy bears the weight of a yet to be fully understood secret that makes him different from the other boys. In The Man Child Eric and his parents celebrate the birthday of his father's childhood friend, Jamie. Jamie, who just turned thirty-four, is "old" and has no wife, kids or property. The tension that bubbles beneath the surface during the birthday dinner doesn't forewarn us of the evil darkness that ends this tale. In Previous Conditions a struggling black actor is broke, alone and frustrated. In Sonny's Blues two brothers try hard to understand each other after the death of their mother. The African American singer in This Morning, This Evening, So Soon readies himself for a trip back home after years of being abroad. Come to the Wilderness is an engaging story of a woman reflecting on all the hurt she's holding on to and all of her choices. It has some of the best, most moving lines in this collection. The last story is the titular Going to Meet the Man which isn't at all the sexual rendezvous its name suggests. In this upsetting story a racist sheriff lies in bed reminiscing on a life changing public event he witnessed while perched atop his fathers' shoulders.

I love the first two stories because of its protagonist Johnnie who's lovable, confused and perilously close to his first heartbreak. The first two stories also brought back childhood memories of the pious persons I used to know. The Man Child story hurt and Come Out the Wilderness was sad. I interrupted my reading of Going to Meet the Man to search for the song Glory by Common & John Legend. I listened to it on iTunes, watched Yolanda Adams' mind-blowing cover on YouTube, then watched the Common/John Legend performance of the song at the Oscars before then returning to read the final three pages of the story. It's very important that African migrants continuously educate themselves on America's history. We need constant reminders that the freedoms we currently enjoy were fought for and paid for with human lives. This is a great short story collection. Fifteen months after I bought it off Amazon I finally read this book and I can proudly say I've read something by the revered James Baldwin. You should read this.
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This is my fourth and final book pick for my literary celebration of Black History Month. READ my reviews of Gabrielle Union's We're Going to Need More Wine, Jesmyn Ward's Sing, Unburied, Sing, and Junot Diaz's Drown. 

Sing, Unburied, Sing by Jesmyn Ward | Book Review

The African American family at the center of Jesmyn Ward's Sing, Unburied, Sing is broken and hurt in many different ways. Pop, the family's patriarch, is burdened by a secret from his time in prison even as he tries to be present for his grandkids and his dying wife. She's stuck in the bedroom slowly surrendering to cancer that her grandson Jojo says has "...dried her up and hollowed her out the way the sun and the air do water oaks." Jojo's thirteen, mature for his age and saddled with responsibility of caring for his baby sister Kayla but he's still a child. His mom is scattered, a selfish, drug addict who's so blindly intoxicated by feelings for Michael that she numbs herself to everything that signals their incompatibility including the hurt his racist family has inflicted upon hers. She and Jojo take turns narrating Sing, Unburied, Sing, leading us on a journey through their world where the dead speak and the earth is alive.

I discovered the author Jesmyn Ward via a promotional email from Simon & Schuster which I unwittingly signed up for after purchasing Gabrielle Union's We're Going to Need More Wine. The book title and its cover art displayed in the email caught my attention so I did a little online research ordered this title and Salvage the Bones. Jesmyn displays an acute awareness of America's racial history, of small town life, the complexity of human existence. Her writing is lyrical and has an entrancing old school flavor. She's a great storyteller. I'm pleased with Sing, Unburied, Sing but not ecstatic about the tale itself. Regardless, Jesmyn Ward gives off the aura of an author destined for greater things and I'll undoubtedly be keeping up with her literary offerings.
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This is my second book pick for my literary celebration of Black History Month 2018. Read the review of my first book pick, Gabrielle Union's We're Going to Need More Wine. Catch up on last year's selection HERE. 

We're Going to Need More Wine by Gabrielle Union | Book Review

It wasn't until January of 2017 that I paid attention to BET's TV series Being Mary Jane. My cousins were surfing Netflix for entertainment options while I read a novel on the living room couch that first week of January. I fell asleep while reading and when I woke up Gabrielle Union was on the screen looking gorgeous, bourgeois and pissed off. She was mad at an equally gorgeous man, the actor Omar Hardwick. They seemed to have been arguing then she reminded him that she had asked him to fix the pool lights a long time ago yet he still hadn't done it. She was looking at the dimly lit pool through the floor-to-ceiling windows of her gorgeous home. Omar Hardwick walks out, dives into the pool fully clothed then using powerful strokes he swims gracefully to the other end of the pool. He fixes the pool light, swims back towards the beautiful, no longer irate goddess, and emerges out of the pool completely soaked. His white shirt was now skintight and translucent, his mouth slightly agape so he could catch his breath. This hot muscular god was standing in front of this goddess wordlessly asking her if there was any other way she wanted him to prove that his love for her is real. I was wide awake now and completely sold on Being Mary Jane. Immediately I got the chance I binged all the episodes available on Netflix and then when the new season began later that year I watched it week after week. I discovered the song Mary Jane by Alanis Morissette via the show and I bought it on iTunes. I was confused and shocked at the season 4 cliffhanger finale and then disappointed to learn BET had chosen to end the series and would wrap up the storylines with a two hour movie. It was on Instagram that I saw Gabrielle's video announcing that she was now an author and that fans could get signed copies. I hurried to Simon & Schuster, followed the instructions and eventually got my "Signed First Edition" copy. In conclusion, I've loved Gabrielle Union since I first saw her in Bring It On.

We're Going to Need More Wine is a stellar collection of essays that spans over four decades of Gabrielle's life. She begins with her family's upward move from Omaha, Nebraska to Pleasanton, California and then dives right in with her early memory of a third-grade classmate calling her "N-word Nickie". She fearlessly covers topics like masturbation, virginity loss, teenage sex and abortion, rape, cheating, colorism in her life and in the black community at large etcetera. She opens up about feeling unpretty because of her skin color, her struggle with black hair, her negro nose, interracial relationships and all the frogs she kissed before getting to her Prince, Dwayne Wade. In the book she recommends the movie Splendor in the Grass starring Natalie Wood and Warren Beatty. It's a good one so find it and watch it. I was able to rent it on Amazon Video.

I enjoyed this book a lot. I also love its title too. It's one of those "I wish I had thought of that" kinda book titles. I can't tell you how many memoir galleys I've turned down or how many I've accepted and just been unable to get through. Memoirs seem to be a hit or miss. Sometimes they are stilted other times they're boring so I've sort of given up on them except when the spirit moves me to take a chance like it did with this book. We're Going to Need More Wine is so entertaining. Gabrielle is humorous, raw and honest in a way that I hope to be someday. I'm impressed and inspired. You should read this.
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This is my first book pick for my literary celebration of Black History Month. Catch up on last year's selection HERE.

Black History Month 2018 Book Picks | Incessant Scribble

Another year = Another Black History Month = Another month of celebrating books by black authors! If this is your first time visiting this blog catch up on my inaugural bookish celebration of Black History Month HERE. I originally intended to have four book picks for every celebration of Black History Month but I almost didn't make it this year. In fact I'm not even in the clear yet until I finish my fourth book. Here are my book picks for February 2018:


1) We're Going to Need More Wine by Gabrielle Union
2) Sing, Unburied, Sing by Jesmyn Ward
3) Drown by Junot Diaz
4) Going to Meet the Man by James Baldwin

I finished reading the first three books in January but I was too exhausted to put together any words decent enough to be tagged a book review. I even considered postponing my reading of Baldwin because I was eager to get started on We the Animals by Justin Torres (I finished it last week. It's awesome!) and Then We Came to the End by Joshua Ferris (I'm four pages deep). However, all the social media excitement about the Black Panther movie and Yara Shahidi's birthday post on Instagram about reading Baldwin books galvanized me and I'm going to try to finish my first ever Baldwin book within the next 12 days. Right now I need to go put together three book reviews. Stay Tuned. 

Ruby by Cynthia Bond | Book Review

Ruby Bell is stark raving mad. She walks the streets barefoot, pees on herself in public, howls nightly
in the forest as she battles demons and digs furiously into tree roots. Hers is a cautionary tale repeated often in a small religious African-American community located in Liberty, Texas. A tale of the wages of a life of sin and immorality. She used to be gorgeous, she used to be the object of envy and lust in Liberty but she has fallen from her lofty perch and shattered into a million tiny pieces. A public downfall that Liberty's inhabitants took a savage pleasure in. The only man who hates to see her this way is Ephram Jennings. He's the forty-five years old bachelor son of the late Reverend Jennings and the brother and only sibling of Celia Jennings, local do-gooder and revered prayer warrior. Ephram has his own wounds and scars from the blows life has dealt him physically and emotionally. He's broken on the inside, miserable and stuck with his domineering sister. Ephram wants to tend to Ruby, he wants to pick up her pieces and put her back together again but there are numerous obstacles he must confront. For Ephram and Ruby there will be no happy ending.

Ruby is set in the time period of racial turmoil in America and the community's recent past is one of lynchings and rape of colored people. Far away Martin Luther King is garnering support and earnestly trying to bring about change with his civil rights movement. Everyone of these characters know pain very intimately. One after the other we get deeply acquainted with them and their personal stories. Veils are pulled off characters revealing monsters and the atrocities they have perpetuated. Atrocities that are hard to take in but were committed by community leaders who indulge in public performances of spirituality that hide their rotten cores. The horrors that have cracked Ruby Bell open and incapacitated her beyond redemption are unspeakable and Cynthia Bond is unflinching in her narration. I love Ruby Bell and my heart broke into two for her. I love Ephram a lot and my heart broke for him too. That ending had to come. I don't think Cynthia Bond could have done any better. Ruby is a great read. It's a riveting and incredibly moving novel that I'll never forget. Cynthia Bond deserves many awards and a standing ovation. Kudos to her.
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RUBY's is my fourth book pick from my celebration of Black History Month! Follow through using the links below:

Introductory Post: February Is Black History Month on Incessant Scribble
Book Pick #1: The Twelve Tribes of Hattie by Ayana Mathis | Book Review
Book Pick #2: The Mothers by Brit Bennett | Book Review
Book Pick #3: Here Comes the Sun by Nicole Dennis-Benn | Book Review
Final/Summary Post: Black History Month 2017 on Incessant Scribble 

Here Comes the Sun by Nicole Dennis-Benn | Book Review

Margot works as a front desk clerk at the Palm Star Resort in Jamaica. During the day she answers the phones, welcomes guests, oversees the hotel staff and sees to it that guests are comfortable and well taken care of. At night Margot heads to the rooms of guests who earlier in the day put in orders for sex using code words like "sundae" and "ackee". She has dreams of rising past her current job post and she's doing her best to show her boss that she deserves a promotion.

Delores is Margot's mother and while Margot hustles night and day at the hotel, Delores labors under the scorching Jamaican sun selling souvenirs to tourists. She heads out to her market stall every day with her wares, lures tourists over and then exploits them. It's hard work. The Jamaican sun burns and the heat suffocates but her second daughter is the light at the end of the tunnel. She dreams of the day Thandi will become a medical doctor and rescue her from misery and penury.

Thandi is Margot's sister and Delores second daughter. She's the one who's being aggressively set up to succeed. She's the one expected to rise high and fly far. She's the basket into which Delores and Margot have put their precious eggs. Thandi is book smart and going to the best school in the area through a scholarship Margot wangled from Alphonso Wellington her boss at Palm Resort Hotel. Margot and Delores have drilled into Thandi that a good education and good grades is her only escape. It's the only thing that can elevate Thandi above this mess of a life and take her far far away from their shack. The dollars Margot and Delores stash away is used to make Thandi comfortable and see that she lacks nothing that she needs. They even let her skip household chores just so she can concentrate on getting the best grades possible to guarantee entrance into medical school. Thandi does as she's asked but she's not interested in being a doctor. She wants to be an artist and the little encouragement given to her by a schoolteacher sows a seed that threatens to undo all the effort that has been put into Thandi.

Here Comes the Sun is my 3rd book selection for Black History Month here on Incessant Scribble. I discovered this novel and my 2nd book selection, The Mothers by Brit Bennett, in the article My Year of Reading Books by Black Women written by Alisha Acquaye for Elle Magazine. Here Comes the Sun is a great book selection especially for Black History Month for many reasons one of which is that it deals with uncomfortable topics in black communities such as rape, homosexuality and colorism. It pushes the reader to confront these topics and to notice how they affect all our lives directly or indirectly. I think that makes this material more powerful and many times more arresting.

I need to discuss Delores and Margot but I'll try not to give much away. I think it's easier to tag Delores a monster and file her character away than to pay attention to everything that we know about her and acknowledge that she's the way she is because of the cards life has dealt her. She's just like the rest of us. So even though she's cold and unloving and even though she tears down her daughter's dreams and tears down their confidence. Even though she has fed her daughter to ravenous wolves on numerous occasions she's still a human being with her own demons and insecurities. Honestly there were a couple of times when I wanted someone to hug her and somehow heal her emotional wounds.

Margot is very ambitious. She may not be as book smart as her little sister, she may not have the

Formation World Tour, Houston, TX 5/7/16

education and exposure she needs to get the job she wants, and she may not have had a gentle, loving childhood but she doesn't let those things hold her back from her goals. She's ruthless in her pursuit of them tossing morals aside, sacrificing lives, breaking hearts, burning bridges and shattering homes. On page 196 she does something so savage that my eyes widened in disbelief and I put down the novel. It was already past midnight and I was still trying to recover from the shock and pain of watching Beyonce, just hours before, lose the Grammy for Album of the Year for her groundbreaking album LEMONADE, which she more than deserved. It was all just too much for one night so I went to bed. At first Margot seems better than her mother but in the end I'm not sure where to put her so to speak. She has mined the darkness of her childhood, adolescence and adulthood and used all of that to fuel her way forward. So at the end of the novel, however volatile her situation may seem to some readers, however pyrrhic her victory may seem to some readers, it's important to note that she survived. It's important to applaud that she held her head above water and went for every single thing she ever wanted. And anyone, anyone who has ever come from nothing. Anyone who grew up in poverty and lived in "shacks", and has forever known deep, deep, deep thirst for the better and nicer things in life will relate to Margot in some measure. I love this novel. I love it. I love it. I love it. You need to read it.

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READ My Other Black History Month Selections!!!
Book #1: The Twelve Tribes of Hattie by Ayana Mathis | Book Review
Book #2: The Mothers by Brit Bennett | Book Review

The Mothers by Brit Bennett | Book Review

The Mothers begins titillatingly with scandalous gossip. Nadia Turner, daughter and only child of Robert and Elisa, got impregnated by the pastor's son and she went to the abortion clinic downtown to rid herself of the baby. The rumor is told to us by "the mothers" a circle of wizened old women who have lived all their lives in Oceanside, a small community in California, USA. The mothers have seen it all - young feverish love, heartbreak, pregnant girls hidden from prying eyes and shipped off quickly to the home of a faraway aunt - and so even though they judge Nadia's actions their judgement seems to come from a different place. In a community as small and tight-knit as Oceanside everyone is connected and one person's actions can create a ripple that morphs into a wave and topples even the most revered community institutions.

Let me first say that this review doesn't do this novel justice (neither does the book cover art) and for that I sincerely apologize. Right from the beginning Bennett has you hooked and she keeps you enraptured until the very end. I'm amazed and so so impressed by the wisdom and depth Bennett has shown in this debut. How old is Brit Bennett? How is she so knowing? The Mothers by Brit Bennett is the spectacular arrival of a new literary voice. It's a mesmerizing accomplishment. Much kudos to Brit Bennett. You need to read this book.
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This is my second book pick for my annual celebration of Black History Month here on Incessant Scribble. My first book pick was The Twelve Tribes of Hattie by Ayana Mathis. My third book pick will be reviewed on the 21st. 

The Twelve Tribes of Hattie by Ayana Mathis | Book Review

Hattie, her mom and her two sisters fled the south and traveled up north to Philadelphia to start life all over when Hattie was fifteen years old. The difference in racial relations is immediately evident to Hattie when she gets off the train at Broad Street Station, Philadelphia and so she vows never to return to the south. Not long after their arrival Hattie gets impregnated by August and she moves out of her mother's house to live with him. The twelve tribes referred to in the book title are her eleven kids and one granddaughter and each chapter in the book focuses on each child or in some cases two. Hattie's life has been a thorny mess partly as a result of her choices and largely because August Shepherd is an unambitious, no-good adulterer, completely unworthy of Hattie. The Twelve Tribes of Hattie begins with the birth and death of Hattie's first babies, the twins Philadelphia and Jubilee, thus setting the tone for the rest of the novel.

Ayana Mathis's prose is immediately absorbing. The first chapter is there to break our hearts and ready us for the rest of the novel. The characters are colorful, each one contributing immensely to the narrative and bringing along his or her own recollection of the same family events. I finished The Twelve Tribes of Hattie and wanted more so I continued on to the acknowledgements and drank up all of Ayana's thank-you's to those who contributed to this work. This is one of those novels that makes me question if I could ever really do this, if I could ever write anything decent enough. It's one of those novels for which I made a mental note to revisit for some sort of literary guidance once I'm ready to walk this path and tell my own stories. I love this novel a lot. You should read it.

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This is my first book pick for the celebration of Black History Month here on Incessant Scribble. I plan to review four novels this month. My second post will be up on the 14th.

READ:
February Is Black History Month on Incessant Scribble

[Image via Amazon]

February Is Black History Month on Incessant Scribble

Black History Month is an annual celebration of black history and accomplishments. It's a tradition that originated from the fact that the contributions of blacks to the United States of America were being omitted in history books. It was a disturbing trend that many African Americans noted and spoke out against. Carter G. Woodson was one of those frustrated by the omissions and so with the help of Jesse E. Moorland he founded the Association for the Study of the Negro Life and History (now called the Association for the Study of African American Life and History [ASALH]). That association led to the launching of a "Negro History Week" which later expanded into Black History Month and got officially recognized by U.S. President Gerald R. Ford in 1976. You can read a summarized version of this history at TIME Magazine and also on the History website.

Incessant Scribble has always been dedicated to celebrating the literary works of African authors. Over the past few years I've considered reviewing the works of other black authors on this blog but it wasn't until last year that I became immensely inspired to do so by Read Diverse Books, a literary blog I've been following for over a year. It's a gorgeous blog with great literary content and it's run by the very energetic and smart Nazahet Hernandez, a resident of Texas here in the U.S.A. For a whole month beginning from September 15th, 2016 and on till October 15th, 2016, Naz featured reviews, author interviews, guest posts from latin authors and author spotlights on his blog for the Hispanic Heritage Month. It was an entire month dedicated to celebrating and uplifting latin literary voices. I was mind blown and completely impressed with the quality of work he blogged and in awe because I know the amount of effort that goes into blogging. I was so impressed that I swore I'd pay tribute to African American authors in whatever tiny way I could come February 2017. Beginning this year and continuing every year henceforth, I will devote the entire month of February to promoting black literature that isn't from the continent of Africa. It's my goal to review at least four novels for Black History Month every year.

From the minute I became inspired by Nazahet last year, I began to compile a list of novels by African American authors that I wanted to read. My shortlist included:

1. Sula by Toni Morrison
2. A Lesson Before Dying by Ernest J. Gaines
3. Going to See the Man by James Baldwin
4. The Twelve Tribes of Hattie by Ayana Mathis
5. Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston
6. The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead
7. Between the World and Me by Ta Nehisi Coates

After much consideration (I used Amazon's "Look Inside" feature a lot to preview the novels) I dropped #1, #6 and  #7 from my shortlist. I already owned #2 and so I bought #3, #4 and #5. I began to read #5 but I dropped it because I found it unabsorbing. I'll give it another shot sometime in the future. On January 6th of this year one of my friends, Thank-God Eboh, shared the ELLE Magazine article My Year of Reading Books by Black Women written by Alisha Acquaye on Facebook. I loved it. It was in that article that I discovered and quickly purchased The Mothers by Brit Bennett and Here Comes the Sun by Nicole Dennis-Benn. I had been contemplating buying Ruby by Cynthia Bond for some time so once I saw it in the ELLE article I bought it. I finished reading The Twelve Tribes of Hattie in early January. I'm currently in the middle of The Mothers and I hope to get to Here Comes the Sun right after that. I'm not yet sure what my 4th book pick will be or if I'll be able to meet my goal of four novels this month. I'll do my best. Keep an eye out for my book reviews 7th, 14th, 21st and 28th of this month. Have an amazing month!

[Image via Cal Alumni Association UC Berkerley]