African American Fiction

This month I chose to read some African American fiction titles.

1. I just finished listening to Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye. I don't think I can say that I enjoyed it, the story is not a pleasant one, but I certainly felt the power of it. Set in 1941, eleven-year-old Pecola, viewed as ugly by everyone in town, wishes for blue eyes. The abusive situations as well as her self hatred/hatred of her racial identity are all very disturbing issues. And they are issues that we don't want to have to deal with. The layout of the book was a little problematic for me. The story was told in several different voices and it wasn't always clear to me who was narrating and when chapters had ended. I think listening to the story may have compounded this problem because I could not see the switches take place. This version was superbly narrated by Lynne Thigpen. I also contained an afterword written by Morrision in which she, among other things, discusses her dissatisfaction (30 years after writing the novel) with the way she structured it. As I said above, I did not particularly enjoy The Bluest Eye, but I think that it was a necessary read for me by one of the most important and celebrated authors of this era.


2. I also read Dirty Game by Shannon Holmes, one of the most recognized urban fiction authors. I will start by saying that I wanted to read B-more Careful, Holmes' first novel which is set in Baltimore, but all of the copies were unavailable. So I picked up this one off the new books shelf. This is the story of Destiny Greene, daughter of two street cons. Destiny is raised by her father Ken-Ken after her mother is shot and killed while still pregnant with the child. Ken-Ken vows to go straight and raise his daughter right. Which he does, for the most part, until he is paralyzed and Destiny takes to the streets to support them. The story is fast paced and easy to follow. I read it in only a few sittings. The biggest problem is that Holmes didn't seem to know how to end it. And even though all the right people get their just desserts, I didn't feel like the loose ends were quite wrapped up the way I wanted.