As I was preparing to write this post, my friends and I were talking about our respective psychological hang-ups in a group text and I thought I'd continue that conversation here. One of my psychological hang-ups is the aversion to finishing things while at the same time carrying around every unfinished task in my mind like so many millstones around my neck.
Here's my current view which includes 2 unfinished craft projects (peacock cross-stitch on the left and a blanket for a baby who is 5 months old already on the right) and a third craft project I started earlier this year, the blue blanket to the far right, which I technically finished but still haven't weaved the ends in yet. For months, I have not been able to bring myself to work on these projects, which bothers me enough to write them on my to-do list every. single. week. but not enough to actually make any real progress.
Speaking of to-do lists, I am now writing my to-do lists in my 2022 calendar because this habit of mine to try to start something new before the old thing is finished is so strong that I even do it with years. I know I'm not unique in that regard. Even if you don't make formal New Years Resolutions, when December rolls around you probably can't help yourself from thinking back on the past year and looking forward to the next one.
Over the past month, I've been making mental and physical lists about what I would like to finish up and leave in 2021 and this blog tops all of those lists. It has served its purpose - I have read at least 10 books I would not have normally read - and now I want it to be done. I want to move on to the next thing.
I finished the book for this post over a week ago. I usually write the posts within a day or two so the information is fresh, but I've been giving a lot of thought about what I wanted to talk about in this, what very well could be the last, post.
I thought about writing about lost things. On my walks, I have seen people searching for lost dogs. I've seen cellphones and shoes and hats and books lost on the road or in a ditch. I have called Wes to drive around and help me look for a glove I lost at some point on a 3 mile walk that I didn't want to re-trace on foot. I've lost worries on walks. I've lost time and I've lost a good buzz I had from too much wine with dinner. I've gotten myself lost in places I've been to a hundred times. I would have wowed you with my completely novel and brilliant theory that we are unhappy because we spend too much time trying to find things - searching for a significant other/a fulfilling career/answers to the hard questions/more friends/more followers/more money/more stuff/more vacations - and not enough time trying to lose ourselves to the greater good.
I thought about writing about social norms. There would have been a philosophical debate about the degree to which social norms are helpful versus stifling. Do we need social norms so that we can identify dangerous psychopaths? Are social norms nothing but a way to control the masses? I would have told you how my chest feels hot and my jaw clinches whenever someone tells me good morning or Merry Christmas or says, "Hi, how are you?" in passing. Just fucking nod at me and move on because you don't actually care if I have a good morning or a Merry Christmas or how I am and you are only doing it because it is just what people do and you are wasting your breath and my time. I would have told you how when I'm in a church service, the fact that everyone stands when the preacher says stand and how everyone sings the words on the screen all together and how everyone sways in exactly the same way like they are connected by a string that's attached to the bass player's right hand makes me question the entire concept of Christianity as nothing but a successful cult so sometimes I stay seated and bow my head as if in prayer and other times I stand there motionless and don't even mouth the words to the songs, always just buying time until everyone sits down so that feeling will go away and I can focus on the message.
But in the end, I decided that to write about either of those or any other "deep" topic would have taken too much time and mental capacity that I simply do not have at this point in the year. So let's just get to the point of this reading and walking blog.
THE WALK
We spent the weekend after Thanksgiving in South Carolina with Wes's mom, her boyfriend, and Wes's sister. I spent most of the weekend being Holiday Lazy, but we did go for a nice Sunday stroll on the beach. I had already been on the LFL website and had scouted out several libraries in that area. Tinsley and I left the beach in search of the closest one. To no one's surprise, I had made us go out at the wrong parking area so we had to walk on the sidewalk for awhile, but we found it at the next beach access.
THE LFL
From the LFL website
Lat: 33.8225008, Long: -78.66186619999999
I am a children's book author here at the beach. Feel free to enjoy the library by adding to it, or choosing a book to take with you. Please sign the visitor's journal. Enjoy! 9th Avenue North is a beautiful and peaceful place to enjoy the beach with a book.
There was a Porta Potty literally right next to the LFL, but I conveniently cropped that out. This one had a hook for a dog leash which Duffy is demonstrating. I had really, really high hopes for this library. From what I've seen, LFLs at beach accesses have the best variety, which makes sense considering so many different people pass through with whatever their definition of a beach read is.
This one disappointed me by being a mess of popular authors in genres I don't particularly enjoy. I was methodically reading each back cover synopsis and losing hope by the book when Tinsley handed me the book on the far right and said, "This looks interesting."
I had never heard of the author or of the book itself, but there were 3 stickers on the cover indicating the prizes the book had won. By the way, who wants to sign my petition to make printers stop doing that? Authors should be very proud of the awards they won, sure, but put it on the back cover. Those stickers ruin the front cover and it kills me that I can't peel them off.
The back cover had the shortest, most interesting synopsis in the box.
Steve Harmon's black.
He's in jail, maybe forever.
He's on trial for murder.
And he's sixteen years old.
I flipped through the book and noticed the format was not that of a novel. It alternates between hand written diary entries and a screenplay of court scenes. Sure, I was interested in the story, but if I'm being honest the format is what sold me on this book because I knew it meant it would be a quick read. Did I mention I'm very, very done with this project?
THE BOOK REVIEW
This book is hard to classify. I assume it is in the category of Young Adult because it won the Michael L. Printz Award for Excellence in Young Adult Literature and because it is a very short book with a format that would keep a young reader's attention.
When I started this book, I was expecting to read a social commentary on a judicial system that preys on black men in the form of a fictional story. And it was that, in fact, it won the Coretta Scott King Award which honors books that promote non-violent social change. Steve Harmon is a 16 year old black boy from a good family who is in jail, not juvenile detention but real prison, at the beginning of the book. Through his diary and the court proceedings, we learn that Steve's case are both centered on distancing Steve from the stereotype of the incarcerated black man. The problem is that Steve is an incarcerated black man and he is surrounded by incarcerated black men and he feels the quick sand pull of the American legal system on him and he knows that he cannot free himself from the pit.
Steve's defense attorney and his own observations in the prison echo what we see on the news every day, that prisons are disproportionately filled with black men. This is a fact and it is a crime in itself and it is a tragedy because sometimes the men are innocent but even when they are guilty of something as insignificant as smoking or selling or having marijuana we know that they are sentenced more harshly than white men. That theme is present in this book, it is necessary to address, but it isn't the main theme of the book. The author doesn't hang his hat on this one, obvious point and call it a day.
Now this is where I want to stop writing this blog and call everyone I know and just scream over the phone and into the universe, "THIS IS A PSYCHOLOGICAL THRILLER!". Every single time I think about it I shiver and I think, Damn that was a brilliant, brilliant book. You can call this a young adult book, you can call it a social commentary, you can call it a court procedural, but you cannot call it anything short of brilliant.
I find it very difficult to explain to you the nuances of the book without spoiling the ending. We travel with Steve through the trial in the court room, through the nights in prison with the other inmates, and through the past when the events that the trial is based upon occurred. Even though we are literally in Steve's head, I still cannot tell you what actually happened.
Let me just put my hand in your face to stop you before you try to chalk this up to the unreliable narrator trope. The unreliable narrator trope is most commonly employed either when the narrator is a liar with an agenda (e.g. The Good Guy) or when the narrator is mentally ill and has a warped view of the truth (e.g. Shutter Island). There is no indication that Steve is mentally ill, but he does have a very strong motivation to misrepresent the truth as he is facing 25 years to life for felony murder. Even with the motive, I don't think that is what is happening here. This book is written from Steve's perspective as though he is a filmmaker and as Steve's high school film teacher testifies in court, Steve is an excellent filmmaker because he is honest. Good movies are honest movies and Steve would not be able to produce what he did if he weren't an honest person. Did Steve fool his teacher and me as a reader and is he trying to fool the jury to get out of the punishment for a crime he actually committed?
Maybe.
Though, if that were the case, we wouldn't be questioning Steve - the main character, the hero of this story, the poor black kid victimized by the racist legal system. But we are. The whole time Steve is railing against the stereotypes he is facing and the unfairness of his current situation, the whole time we are sitting with him in his fears and anxieties we are questioning his innocence. If the author had merely been employing the unreliable narrator trope, we would not be able to question our hero. We would be mad at the cops and the prosecutor and the judge. We would be swallowing around the fear in our own throats that the jury would not be able to see Steve as an innocent child. But we aren't. If Steve were merely a guilty man presenting his story to us in such a way as to convince the world he was an innocent man, we would be able to see that as the reader even if the other characters in the book could not.
I want to argue with you until I'm blue in the face that Steve is a reliable narrator, that the unresolved feeling we are left with is because he is so young and naïve, because life is messy, because the justice system isn't about truth but about the semantics of words like guilty and innocent. Behind my raised voice and blue face is a little tickle in my subconscious that is whispering, "Right?" with a look that is anything but sure. And that is the brilliance of this book.
The author so deftly presents the before, during, and after of the trial that we are left questioning everything. That's why this book didn't just win awards as a young adult social commentary, but was also a National Book Award finalist.
WOULD I RECOMMEND THIS BOOK? Yes, if you have two free hours and want to read a book that you'll think about for the rest of your life.
Comments