The heart wants what the heart wants, and our hearts want books.

The following post includes affiliate links. More details here.  As you’re doing your Amazon shopping, we’d be ever so grateful if you’d use our affiliate link to do so as it helps pay the bills around here!

Nikki writes below about discussing favorite Aunts at Virtual Book Club, and boy howdy do we have some Aunts who show up in Gilead! Join us TOMORROW, 17 September at 7:30pm central time by registering here to discuss Margaret Atwood’s duology of The Handmaid’s Tale and The Testaments.

Our second title for September’s Banned Books month is James Baldwin’s Go Tell It On The Mountain, which, like last week’s title The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, is a semi-autobiographical novel that focuses on the protagonist changing from childhood into young adulthood. James Baldwin was born at Harlem Hospital New York in 1924 and died in 1987 in southeastern France. A prolific writer his entire life, he published 6 novels, numerous essays and essay collections, multiple collaborative works with other authors, as well as plays and poetry. Baldwin is known for representing mid-19th century life, specifically in the black and LGBTQ communities. What I didn’t realize before reading Go Tell It On The Mountain, but Baldwin lived and wrote in France for the majority of his life, including this book, which could be considered his debut novel published in 1953. Unsurprisingly during his life, he neither confirmed nor denied his identity as a gay man, and returned home from France in 1957 to become involved in the civil-rights movement, a group known for it’s intolerance towards homosexuality. Baldwin toured the South and gave lectures at universities discussing the race situation in both the North and South. He notably marched with hundreds of others the 50 miles from Selma, Alabama to the capital of Montgomery in March of 1965. I make specific note of this because one summer I took a girls trip to Montgomery and we drove my Jeep that same 50 miles, across the Edmund Pettus Bridge. It’s not the same as walking it under protection of federal troops for legitimate political and social reasons, but our drive was an action taken in solidarity and remembrance. Posthumously, Baldwin’s works have been used as the basis for films, including 2018’s Academy Award Winning film If Beale Street Could Talk, based on the novel of the same name, and his unfinished manuscript Remember This House was the basis for Raoul Peck’s 2016 documentary I Am Not Your Negro.

Phew, that was a long biography, but Baldwin is one of the few authors we have written a post about who has died and I wanted to give his whole life representation, not just the young part of his life that is semi-autobiographically found in Go Tell It On The Mountain.  In the novel we follow the few days surrounding Johnny Grimes’s fourteenth birthday as he celebrates his birthday by himself out in Central Park and at a movie then attends church where his step-father, Gabriel Grimes, is pastor. We get told the story of Johnny and his family through his family’s thoughts and prayers (heavy T’s and P’s) during the prayer service. We are told the personal histories of the only father he has ever known, his mother Elizabeth, and his father’s sister Florence. From these personal histories we learn the family trauma that begat the dark night of the soul which John must overcome during prayer service to find himself saved and confirmed in the service of the Lord Jesus. The style and symbolism of Baldwin’s writing is very cerebral, this is not a beginning, middle, and end plot structure. We jump from person to person as their story informs John’s inner journey. And that, dear readers is what I took away from this story. The generations of social, political, and economic trauma of black people are carried by every living descendant and that’s a heavy burden to have to bear. My favorite quote from the book confirms this theme:

Fear was upon him, a more deadly fear than he had ever known, as he turned and turned in the darkness, as he moaned, and stumbled, and crawled through darkness, finding no hand, no voice, finding no door. Who are these? Who are they? They were the despised and rejected, the wretched and the spat upon, the earth’s offscouring; and he was in their company, and they would swallow up his soul. The stripes they had endured would scar his back, their punishment would be his, their portion his, his their humiliation, anguish, chains, their dungeon his, their death his.

Was Go Tell It On The Mountain what I expected to read? Only on the basic premise and themes of the book, because to be honest I expected a more structured plot. Even though I was surprised by the structure, I was not disappointed in the reading. I can certainly see why the book was banned – sexuality, adultery, suicide, and the prevalent use of that vocabulary word with a negative connotation towards black people. And that’s not to mention the implied and stated hatred against white people and white supremacy. I’m going to give James Baldwin’s ‘debut’ novel 3.5 rounded up to 4 stars. I’m interested in the rest of Baldwin’s work but probably won’t go on a deep dive any time soon, especially if he has a penchant for such heavy themes.

What book have you read lately that has reminded you of the burdens others carry?

~Ashley

Confession time dear readers.  This wasn’t the right time for me to read Go Tell It On The Mountain by James Baldwin, and it’s likely to show up in my thoughts on this novel.  I knew (or remembered, you can pick) nothing about this novel, other than it was by James Baldwin, it was old, and it was banned.  Published in 1953 originally, this is a story of perseverance in the face of great difficulty.  As you might imagine, this story of a fourteen year old coming to faith (sort of, we’ll come back to that), through the lense of his complicated, tragic family history is heavy.  Then you add in that he and his family are Black, and looking back to 1953, there’s more heaviness there.  Ashley mentioned several of the reasons the book was banned – sex, language, suidice, word choice.  She didn’t mention degradation of women (which is likely one of the reasons my timing was off – I read this shortly after The Handmaid’s Tale and those themes were a bit too close for comfort), nor did she mention, as this very interesting take on the banning of Go Tell It On The Mountain does, the portrayal of faith.  

Johnny’s big struggle is to live up to his (step)-father’s vision of what he wants his (real) son to be, a man of faith just like him.  We learn of the church Johnny attends with his family (which felt very similar to the contemporary church portrayed in Lamar Giles’s Not So Pure and Simple, and how they hold services, vigils, and support one another.  Around this journey of just a few days, we also learn of two generations of struggles in Johnny’s family, as his (step) grandmother was a slave during the civil war, and his father and aunt were raised by a single Black mother in the South.  We learn his mother’s history too, and that of her young life, and eventual move to New York.  There have been a lot of Aunts in my reading life, and as of now Florence is my favorite.  She may not get it right all the time, but she genuinely tries so, SO hard, and I respect that.  (Perhaps we’ll discuss favorite Aunts in Virtual Book Club on Friday…remind me though.)

But what did I think about Go Tell It On The Mountain?  The writing is beautiful, but just almost too much.  When I read that it was Baldwin’s first major work, it made so much sense, this is his debut novel.  The structure is creative, and it really works well.  The themes are heavy and laid out, but the reader is left to interpret, which I appreciate, and the story had aspects of both a mirror and a window for me, which was really interesting.  I’m giving it a solid 3, and while I’m interested in Baldwin’s other works, I doubt I’ll revisit this one.  Overall though, I’m glad I’ve read it.  I’m glad I have the experience of this novel and a good introduction to Baldwin’s work.

What’s a book that you’ve read and appreciated, but think you might have appreciated more at a different time?

~Nikki 

PLEASE SUPPORT US WHEN YOU SHOP BY FIRST CLICKING ON THE IMAGES BELOW:

The following post includes affiliate links. More details here.  As you’re doing your Amazon shopping, we’d be ever so grateful if you’d use our affiliate link to do so as it helps pay the bills around here!

Nikki AND Ashley have both finished the first title in our Banned Books Virtual Book Club Double Feature: Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale and we still have 8 whole days to start and finish (re)reading The Testaments  before our meeting on Friday, September 17, 2021 at 7:30 p.m. CST.  Register here if you want in on the conversation about tricky Latin cognates and conjugations.

Most of the time we start our book review posts with Nikki giving an intro to the book, how it came to be on our TBR, and her takeaways. But, today we’re going to start with my research and background on the author of The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, Sherman Alexie. Alexie was born in Spokane, Washington, and is a Spokane-Coeur d’Alene Indigenous American tribe member. He is primarily a poet and short-story writer. His 1993 short story collection The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven might be his most well-known work as he adapted it into a screenplay for the 1998 movie Smoke Signals. His 1995 novel Reservation Blues won an American Book Award. Alexie has over 20 published works ranging from today’s semi-autobiographical young adult novel, poetry collections, short story collections, novels, and a memoir. The main reason for focusing on Alexie’s history first is because in 2018 he was accused of and admitted to sexual harassment of several women from which there have been major repercussions. The Institute of American Indian Arts renamed its Sherman Alexie Scholarship to the MFA Alumni Scholarship. The American Library Association, which had just awarded Alexie its 2018 Carnegie Medal for You Don’t Have to Say You Love Me: A Memoir in February of that year was reconsidering, and in March it was confirmed that Alexie had declined the award and was postponing the publication of a paperback version of the memoir.  The American Indian Library Association rescinded its 2008 Best Young Adult Book Award from Alexie for The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, “to send an unequivocal message that Alexie’s actions are unacceptable.”

These facts about Sherman Alexie and his body of work are placed here, during Heart.Wants.Books. Banned Book theme month for very important reasons. As informed readers in this age of instant information via the interwebz, we need to be able to take in information about an author or about a book and use that information to form our own conclusion about what is appropriate for our own (or our littles!) readerly consumption. However, at the same time, we can not use our knowledge and personal judgement to deny access of a title to others (general others, not those littles who are in our care) who might wish to read it. Do I think that Alexie’s admission of sexual harassment of multiple women to be abhorrent? Absolutely yes. Do I think that any of his works should remain on banned books lists? Still no. Do I think we as readers and members of the public need to be informed of his past actions and allow our knowledge of the actions of the author to inform what we read and take away from his works? Also yes. Does the knowledge I gained about the author AFTER I read The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian change what I think about the book on a technical and enjoyable level? No, not in any real way. So, let’s talk about why that is.

The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian was a learning experience about the fictionalized experiences of living on a Native American Indian Reservation and the prevalent racism that exists there and at the off-rez high school our protagonist Junior attends. Alexie’s writing is saddening, infuriating, and humorous at the same time. I also think it’s a great title for older high schoolers to read to learn about people who are different from them. I would not suggest the themes and language appropriate for those under the age of 16, though there are of course, many readers that would be able to handle all of the above. There’s a lot of discussion of violent death, the pugilist culture of the rez, alcoholism, gambling, and sexual fantasies. But, in those same themes are truths about human nature and human habit. The hard and difficult themes of life are how we learn to become better people and handle our own traumas, by having lived through the traumas of fictional characters. I’m going to give The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian 3.5 rounded to 4 stars. It definitely exceeded expectations and I learned a lot about reservation culture and the inherent racism of that system. I will definitely recommend reading this novel, but I don’t know if I will be visiting any of Alexie’s backlist. 

Are there any books that have been tarnished by your knowledge about the author?

~Ashley

Oh readers, I am especially amused that Ashley says I usually provide the information about how a book came to be on our TBR, yet she knows how much of a struggle I sometimes have with memory, and yes, she edits before you see it, so she knows.  That said, here’s what I recall about how we came to read The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie.  We had long ago decided to do a month on banned books and when planning time came around we looked into lists of commonly banned books and picked out those of particular interest, either to us, or of us wanting to be sure the other had read (this will come up again later this month).  We looked at our narrowed list and realized all of our books were…old.  And not like backlist old, but mostly not quite classics, at least not yet.  Ashley wanted to see what new things have been banned, and that led us to today’s pick.  As mentioned in the interview in the addition to the 10th anniversary edition (which I highly suggest), were comments about other commonly banned books.  Speaking of our little people, mine love a banned book that was mentioned, Captain Underpants and I do not love it.  I would not purchase it for them, although my mother did (and yes I’m still a bit bitter because she’d have never bought such a thing for me).  Did I ban this book from my house?  Nope.  But I sure did ban my people from discussing it in my presence.  Compromise is possible!

Why was The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian banned?  Well, what Ashley said – Alexie’s behavior and the novel’s “adult” themes.  You can read more here, but that’s the short version.  These “adult” themes are in quotation marks, with side-eye because the themes and situations in this novel are real, and they are faced by actual people the same age as the protagonist, some even younger, and he’s in high school during this novel.  It’s real, vulnerable, unfiltered life in the pages of this book, and it’s incredibly well written.  My 4th grader saw the cover and asked to read it.  I told him he needs to wait a while, like maybe middle school, and then he can read it, and he’s fine with that.  While that is what feels right at my house, I’ve also read the book and am prepared to ask questions to lead into a discussion with my child about the content.  I’d want an unguided reader to be older still, because Junior is real and open as he “writes” his diary, as he should be.  

As much as I would not want to be a teacher tasked with guiding a class through The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian (although it seems to be, or have been, taught not infrequently) because there is a lot of talk of … pubescent males and their private behavior, this book is also really, really important.  Jacqueline Woodson wrote the foreword to the edition I read and put it beautifully, while referencing the work of Dr. Rudine Sims Bishop – 

…books can be both mirrors and windows – mirrors in which readers can see themselves on the pages of literature and thereby know their existence in the world is valid and true, and windows into worlds they might never have imagined.

May we, and our (age appropriate) children read this book and others that allow them to feel their existences are valid and true, to feel seen by others, and also books that allow us to see into the experiences of others so that we can seek to be more understanding, kind, and compassionate.  

I’ve been feeling the push of banned books lately as there has been big to do in my district over a relatively new English Language Arts curriculum.  Some parents are up in arms because of the content their children are reading in class because it’s (my words here, not theirs) harsh, tragic, or anxiety-inducing.  I don’t take issue with these texts because the world is also these things (and the reading list is actually really cool).  While I want to do everything I can to prepare my children for that harsh, tragic world, I know they need to be exposed to that and guided through it in order for them to be a better version of themselves out in the world as a grown up.  We may read things others don’t approve of, but if I question their reading material, then I’m reading it too so we can talk about it.  Or if they read something that might be advanced in content, I’m asking probing questions about the book to open a discussion, and letting them ask about the advanced piece (see also walking and talking about periods with my 8 year old).   Does that lead to interesting and uncomfortable conversations on occasion?  Most definitely, but my kids also know they can ask me anything and I’ll be honest with them.  

Books are mirrors and windows, and because of that, they can also change a person because of what they show.  The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian had some truth bombs to drop, things that hadn’t occurred to me before but made perfect sense.  It gave me some insight into pubescent male behavior from the inside (before I have two pubescent males in my house *shudder*).  I’m giving it 4 stars for the content as well as the writing.  I’m not likely to reread it, but I am likely to suggest it, and I’d consider the backlist because this was so well written.  

What’s a book that’s snuck in some truth bombs on you?  

~Nikki 

PLEASE SUPPORT US WHEN YOU SHOP BY FIRST CLICKING ON THE IMAGES BELOW: