Hell of a Book

Appropriately named.

Hell of a Book is a weird book, let’s get that out of the way. And I’ll say this: I like weird books. This is a book about an author who wrote Hell of a Book with a “disorder” (something Malka Older would term a narrative disorder, btw) where by reality is a liminal space. He’s not entirely sure what is “real” and what isn’t. And he’s old enough to know that when you have that problem and live with it long enough, well it’s more important how you react to, and discern, things that may be entirely imaginary. If they are… imaginary. One such ostensible entity is the seemingly simulacrum of the authors childhood. Or is it a generalization of every black man’s childhood? The talk where they have to educate their own child in racism. In cooperating with the police and diminishing themselves in favour of white peoples’ comfort. Passing, essentially. Only the darker the skin the more difficult that is to do, and the entity the author (who has no name in the book) perceives is described as being as black as possibly, basically; therefor unable to navigate society with ease at all. And as we learn throughout the book, the chapters alternate between the author and A boy’s life story, possibly the boy the author sees, possibly not—we don’t know—there is some responsibility to be negotiated regarding the well being of black people. The author may externalize this responsibility, literalizing it as the child. Interacting with the concept as a person, as he struggles to figure out what kind of author, and person, he wants to be. What should be codified in the text? What will the next book be? What are the pros and cons of racializing himself on the page? There’s a lot of very complex questions posed. Some have answers. Some are there to be posed to the author to be posed to the reader, I’d argue. And some of those do feel a bit perfunctory. They’re discarded in favour of new ideas or notions, often times waiting to be picked up again and naturally tied into the ongoing themes and core concept, but never are. However, what this book attempts to communicate overall is accomplished. The writing is very engaging. It’s sometimes funny, other times incredible somber and dark. It will, at the very least, I can say with confidence, make you think about a number of issues and the author (-function) and the role of the author in present day. With parasocial relationships and media and the ability for fans to simply be able to communicate with you directly, in any number of ways. I think it actually is a hell of a book.

A Black Author’s book tour interconnects to the story of a little black boy named Soot, and their shared experiences are at different points humorous and heartbreaking. My first reaction was that I was not in the right headspace to read this book, but honestly, when would I ever be? My favorite element of the book was how people kept going up to the author about the shooting of a black boy and calling it “a terrible thing” and the author has no idea what shooting of a black person these people are talking about, because this new-to the mainstream experience of black violence by police is something that black people have always lived with. I think this book will have a tremendous impact on book clubs as it will allow the peek into the racist world that people of color inhabit. I am here for any book that calls for a better understanding of inequality, and makes people question there privileged lived experiences.