You Ever Read A Book About Yourself? - On Writing Technique and Grandmas

My professor, A.J Verdelle, and I exchanged books. I gave her Buck by MK Asante and she gave me her own, a literary classic and praised by Toni Morrison, The Good Negress. I secretly hope she gives me this copy; she can have Buck. I also hope to one day give her a copy of my own book. 

I'm on page 94. I've read the inside jacket, the acknowledgements, and the praise on the back of the book. I think about the age of the work. It's as old as I am. Incredible. But even more, I think about the object. The book. And to think my professor is the author of the book. These words are hers, and not to diminish the work of editors or others, but her name is on the front. This is her work. Neesy, Margarete, and Luke edward are hers. Big Jim and Dana are hers. Even Lontz (one of my favorite parts right now) is hers. My professor would probably tell me "It's not mine anymore. The work is published." I can the conversation; I'd be sitting in her office on the second floor of Holmes Hall, and she'd be behind the desk glancing between her screen and me. But I'd still think its hers.

You ever read a book about yourself? You ever felt so close to a character that you feel you can predict their next move, not because you know them, but because you are them?

I might be Neesy. 

I was born in South Carolina and was raised by my grandmother. I did spend some time up North, in Baltimore where I currently live, with my mother and little brother, but most of my life is centered in the small town of Florence, South Carolina. Neesy was also Southern, raised by her own grandmother in Virginia, until the calling came for her to come back to Detroit to help her mom with a new baby. Neesy's grandma is my grandma. I not only picture the feeling of being snatched away from her Virginia home, but I feel it, not in my heart, but in my soul. I shiver. The feeling is all too familiar. I see Grandma's back porch and a car outside, and I see her standing there, waiting for the call to pull off, and I see the car and dirt under it as it pulls out of the clay road driveway. I see the long roads without lights. Growing up, I never thought it weird. But my three days in South Carolina, riding from Florence to Hemingway with only a car light to guide, the experience felt surreal. And dangerous. This is the broke Black South for you. 

When I see Neesy at the parade, I see myself, all big, Black and Jeremy, at the parade. I see purple and gold streamers. Old cars and happy Black people just loving themselves and loving their alma mater. This is the Wilson High School homecoming parade. Wilson was a mostly Black school. An annual event in Florence, people come from across the country to celebrate at one of the biggest and Blackest events in the area. Both my mom and my aunt are Wilsonians. Wilsonians are some of the proudest people you'll ever meet.

On page 81, Neesy describes Luke edward and his relationship to Granma'am. This part was the part that inspired me to write this piece. Between this page and the one before it, my soul ached and my heart heaved. My grandma was 48 when I was born. She'll be 68 this year. I remember a time before she held on to things for support. I remember a time before I was able to reminisce about things. I remember a time when getting from the truck to the door wasn't so long as it is now. I remember when arthritis was only a word I knew, not the pain and the effort I currently see now. The book made me want to call up my grandma and paint the house. As much as I am Neesy, I can be a Luke edward too; at least in that sense.

This is life. 

Neesy as a character is young, curious, and assertive. To be written in such a way requires a level of talent and technique that merits "Truly extraordinary" from Toni Morrison. The level of characterization and the precise placement of punctuation reminded me of the power of words. 

In the power of words, there's several things I'll always remember from my professor including: circling your verbs, writing in scenes, thinking about objects, and starting from the ground up. As I write Mitch, I now understand that I absolutely must read it aloud before submitting it anywhere. Beyond finding out grammar mistakes, I'm sure I'll find flaws in the rhythm of the words. It'll also help me deliver pregnant, as my professor calls them, places. 

You ever read a book about yourself? You ever read about yourself so rawly, you had to close the book and just think. On page 94, I thought about what I'd read and decided to write a blog post. I love to write. I love to read. I'm learning how to write about what I read as professor told me I should. So far, it's been fun. 

Jeremy Discusses Literature: "Apollo" by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

I read "Apollo" sitting in the Weinberg Center at Johns Hopkins University. It was in the "New Yorker", sitting on a regular coffee table in the waiting area and I only noticed it after skimming through the magazine. 

I was supposed to read six books this summer by request of my English Professor A.J Verdelle. I only read two- one being Balm by Dolen Perkins-Valdez and the other being a book on screenwriting. But I've been all into short-fiction, rereading classic authors like Vonnegut and Bradbury, teasing the science-fiction part of my mind. But "Apollo" was a very captivating story. It was short and sweet and a reminder that not all stories had to be bizarre or carry a large scope.

"Apollo" is a brief glimpse into a young man's relationship with his houseboy. An interest in kung fu created ___. The two grow close, and things start to change for the both of them, until Raphael, the houseboy, catches a disease called Apollo. The narrator, Okenwa's, parents split the two until Raphael can get better, but Okenwa, not having any of it, breaks the rules and gives Raphael his medicine. Once Okenwa catches the disease, things get even more complicated and emotions turn towards malice. "He spoke as though I were a child, as though we had not sat together in his dim room." In an act of frustration, Okenwa does something unthinkable.

Apollo is a great story from start to finish. It doesn't go right into the story, but takes us outside of it starting with introducing the parents and his growing up. The characterization of the parents makes them human, and all too real. They're strict, they don't take any mess, and they're full of love and concern - much like the African parents in the memes. If you don't know, check out the Twitter hashtag #GrowingUpAfrican.

From the language to the storytelling, Apollo is a very nice ten minute read. The strong characterization, without knowing too much about setting or time, creates enough of a story for us to attach ourselves to the characters. Apollo creates a story using people and action moreso than background noise. She writes with a rhythm that's easy to follow; sentences have this smooth flow and the words she uses seem to be chosen wisely. It's an easy read. The information isn't an overload and action keeps the story flowing.

Have you read it? What do you think? Let's discuss below!

Reading Part One of "Wench" at Work and the Fear of White Men

Reading Part One

As I think about this past weekend with Wench by Dolen Perkins-Valdez, I think about my experience as a Black man today in America, and I have to just sigh. Professor Verdelle, whose class I'm reading the book for, always tells us to keep in mind that fiction is just that – fiction. But as I read Wench I forget that, and the story just depresses and depresses and depresses until I'm sitting in a mall, waiting to punch the clock at work, face full of enough despair to fuel sixty-five Drake albums. 

Wench is the stories of four slave women - Lizzie, Mawu, Reenie, and Sweet - as they spend their summers at Tawawa House, a resort in Ohio, one of the freed states. Each woman has their kinks and curves in their personalities, but they're sisterhood is something amazing. They're in it for thick and thin.

The storytelling in the book is magnificent and the elements of the story are so captivating. I find myself rooting for all the girls; however, at this point, I feel an extreme disdain for Lizzie. While I understand her condition, I hate the betrayal to the women. But! I must stop with the victim blaming, because the true monsters of the story are the slavemasters themselves. The ways they physically, psychologically, sexually, and emotionally abuse them were insidious. The hate I had for them consumed me, and it reflected in my attitude towards the white men I helped today. While I composed myself professionally, I imagined many of them as the slaveholders. When I picked the book up, going on my lunch break, the connection made reading even worse. There was an older man in particular who came to ask about the Microsoft Band. I'd just come back from break, and wasn't fully recovered. Thinking about the story of Drayle's two sons, I wondered how so much evil could rest in a single person, let alone a group of them!

The Lone Chocolate Chip

The book stayed on my mind throughout the rest of my shift. It was around 8:20PM and I started a search, just to see the demographics on the board of directors at many popular stores in the mall. A strong proponent of small and black-owned businesses, I looked at Microsoft, Urban Outfitters, Nike, Apple, and a few other places. Cocoa-colored folks weren't abundant in my findings, and I just wanted to sigh. Meanwhile, cocoa-colored folks, mostly young teenagers (13-16) were spending money at these companies. 

Yes, Jeremy, white men still rule the world. 

Reading, Writing, and Paying Attention

I've been reading "Where Are You Coming From Sweetheart" by Sarah Salecky for the second time. Although I read it last semester, I couldn't help but read it again, this time paying attention to the voice and the tone and the literary elements as I write my own story for a writing competition. The story is a very good one. I love Sonia's craziness, and I do pity Christine. Her father is annoying, gross, and very unlikeable as a character. I pity him too. Salecky doesn't make it hard to feel sorry for Christine at all and I think its a good thing. At the end, although the circumstances are very unfortunate, she gets what she wants.

I've been making a goal to reread a lot of stuff that I've read before. This time I want to pay attention to the details. This time around, instead of glossing over scenes and being so caught up in the imagination of things, I can pay attention to the words as, well, words.