After the murder of George Floyd in May 2020, books about racism and race relations dominated best-seller lists for the first time. The term white fragility entered the lexicon along with critical race theory and antiracism. A reckoning with history took the form of dialogue about the social obligation to accurately represent Black lives in fiction.
Since that time, several books have been published that may reflect the new focus on representation. This week I look at three new titles about Black lives and what they add to the conversation.
1.
Nella is a twenty-something editorial assistant at Wagner Books in New York. She has been tasked with reading a new title her boss has aquired, a gritty depiction of the opioid epidemic. Nella is uncomfortable with a racially stereotyped character in the manuscript and tells her boss as much. After that exchange, Nella feels ostracized for her candor. A new Black assistant joins the ranks who is savvy in ways Nella is not. Will Nella be pushed out in favor of Hazel?
From that premise, a story unfolds of the social interplay between Black and white co-workers. Hazel is skilled at code-switching, the ability to change gears depending on social cues. Nella flails, Hazel excels, and the reader is forced to consider what this says about white denial of racism. Do Black people have to deny their truths to assuage white defensiveness? The conclusions here seem to point to that.
2.
Jen and Riley grew up together in working-class Philadelphia, a friendship that endures into the present. Riley is an on-air reporter for a local TV station; Jen is expecting her first child with her cop husband. Riley is more financially stable and has paid for the IVF treatments that made the pregnancy possible.
Jen and Riley’s friendship is strained when Kevin, Jen’s husband, shoots an unarmed Black teenager. The story gets national media attention and Riley and Jen find themselves on opposing sides.
This topical story alternates between the two women, each character written by a different author. We see both sides, even if one is considerably more understandable. The authors wisely avoid the white savior stereotype, but also opt for a resolution that makes one character an ideal. I might have preferred a darker ending. I’m not sure a friendship would or even should survive something like this.
3.
This is a short memoir by a Black woman looking back on her childhood in Fort Wayne, Indiana. Her mother supports four children on a modest salary, helped by family members who live in the same apartment building. The author’s formative years are shaped by an overbearing grandmother and the awareness that her father is incarcerated for a heinous crime.
There are some powerful scenes in the book. In one, the author is living on a farm in Missouri after her mother kicks her out. Her grandmother pours gasoline on a group of snakes and they stand over them, watching them burn. “They love on each other, even when they’re dying,” her grandmother says. “Just like us.”
In another, the author visits her father in prison and gets his blessing to tell the truth in the book she’s writing, even if it hurts him. There is poignancy in this bargain, given the current representation of Black men in the media and the fact that her story might just reinforce stereotypes. I felt empathy for her dilemma.
I am encouraged to see new voices emerging on these issues. I can’t help but think, though, about a scene in The Other Black Girl in which a nearly all-white group of editors self-congratulate while launching a racist book that they think is hard-hitting truth. Are these books helping or hurting our understanding of Black lives? Time will tell.
Books Smitten 