50books_poc | Angela Johnson, 'The First Part Last', and Coe Booth's 'Tyrell' and 'Kendra'

Angela Johnson, The First Part Last

This had me crying my eyes out. The book is so short and involving that it's hard to imagine reading it in more than one sitting. This story of a teenaged single father is told in short chapters moving back and forth in time, so that the background of how Bobby came to be bringing up a baby on his own is revealed slowly and poignantly.

I read Coe Booth's Tyrell only a day or two after the Johnson, and the distinction between the two writers' approaches is perhaps noteworthy. I wonder whether the Johnson would appeal more readily to younger readers, whereas Booth is perhaps better appreciated from an adult point of view? I can't quite put my finger on it. The Johnson seems to have a softer focus, less emphasis on the appalling failure of adults and The System that come to the fore in Booth's writing. Johnson's book feels a little more careful in its choices.

Maybe that's understandable in a market concerned with sheltering young readers from the full-blown realities of sex, drugs and social failure in modern America. I read on one teen's blog of her disgust at the sexual content in Tyrell, and her disappointment and dismay in the behaviour of the characters. Johnson's novel reads as a positive portrayal of a young man doing his best by his baby daughter in a tough situation.

Coe Booth, Tyrell and Kendra

Now for Coe Booth. I came to this new author's work via Justine Larbalestier's rave about Kendra. I actually chose to start with Tyrell, and although both books were remarkable, it was Booth's first novel, Tyrell, that captured my heart.

Here's the cover copy for Tyrell:

I really wanna put my fist through the wall. I can't calm myself down. I can feel the blood pounding in my brain. I gotta do something.

Tyrell can't get a break. His dad's in jail, his mom's no help, his brother's just a kid, and his girlfriend, Novisha, wants more than he can give. He's living in a shelter, but he doesn't want to be there long.

So he comes up with a plan. It could save him. Or it could backfire completely.

Tyrell doesn't really have a choice. With everyone relying on him, he can't rely on anyone but himself.

I found it hard to believe this was a first novel. The characters live and breathe, moving through the story in a way that made me lose all awareness of the fact that I was reading words on paper. For a crusty middle-aged reader like me, this doesn't happen every day, let me tell you.

Booth has an ear and an eye for bullshit, as well as for what makes people tick. Seeing through her eyes is a gift. Her chops as a writer are evident in what she doesn't say, doesn't do, and in the invisibiility with which deep plotting drives this slice of life story through to its climax. She nails the ending, too, unafraid to tangle with irony and even managing to find hope.

I can't pile enough recommendations on Tyrell.

One of the most interesting relationships in Tyrell was between the protagonist and his girlfriend Novisha, who keeps no fewer than three diaries--one that she knows her religious mom reads, one that she knows Tyrell reads, and a third that reveals her true thoughts. I found Novisha fascinating and wanted to know more about her.

In a way, I felt I understood her better after reading Kendra, a study of life for a teen girl in which her sexuality is foregrounded under extreme pressure. Kendra is a shorter novel, but set in the same neighborhood (in fact, Tyrell himself gets a mention in one of the scenes). Fourteen-year-old Kendra is the same age that her mom was when she had Kendra; now the mom has a PhD from Princeton and can't be bothered with a daughter who desperately needs her. Kendra lives with her grandmother, who goes to extreme and heartbreaking measures to keep Kendra from repeating her mother's mistakes--a recipe for disaster.

This story was also amazing, although I felt that the ending was perhaps a shade too neat. After I put it down I still felt haunted by what Kendra had been through and sort of pre-haunted by everything that she still had ahead of her. I was really, really angry with her mother. And still am. See what I mean? You start to feel you've met these people!

It's possible to look at these books and see how Booth has taken a cluster of negative ghetto stereotypes and beautifully subverted them.

The teen mom becomes a PhD in sociology.

The angry young Black man is motivated by responsibility for his family above all else.

The unsuccessful dad can't support his kid financially, but emotionally he's the only solid person in her life.

The absent father in jail is a role model for the talented teenager.

Each of these reversals is layered with contradictions and quirks that lift the people off the page, from the major characters right on through to the smallest role, and through it all shines the author's understanding and compassion. There is social commentary here by the truckload, but it never feels like social commentary. It just feels like a hell of a story.

Coe Booth is an author to be celebrated. It looks like she could be working the material of this Bronx neighborhood for years, and I'll be looking out eagerly for her next release.