[Review] Go Tell it on the Mountain by James Baldwin

"The darkness and silence of the church pressed on him, cold as judgment, and the voices crying from the window might have been crying from another world. John moved forward, hearing his feet crack against the sagging wood, to where the golden cross on the red field of the altar cloth glowed like smothered fire, and switched on one weak light."

Rating: 5 Stars
Genre: Literary fiction, Modern fiction, African-American literature
Timeline: Early to mid 1900's
Synopsis: An honest portrayal of a black family living in New York. Every single member of the Grimes family struggles with their faith as they face the inhumanity of living in a violently racist world.

This book is like a work of art. You have to experience it a few times to even begin to truly appreciate the complex humanity that Baldwin has poured into his prose. Like many modernist works, there is a fragmentary cohesiveness in the way the story is told. At once broken yet fluid, I found myself startlingly aware of my own heartbeat as I was reading.

I think there is something to the rhythm of his words, which isn't surprising since Baldwin was a great enthusiast of jazz. There is a flow that carries you along even if you find yourself wavering over the subject matter. The story is foremost about John's internal struggle over his place and identity in a world that forces him to choose between being a sinner or a saint. Because he struggles with his own sexuality (Baldwin was also gay), and because he bears resentment against his abusive step-father who is revered at church, John becomes alienated from the Christ-centered community that he is brought up in. For himself, he sees no hope of redemption or salvation.

[Review] Mysterious Skin by Scott Heim

"When I sprinted from the house, I saw the moon, orange, almost electric, stalled between feathery clouds like a helium balloon, ready to burst into a million splinters. Without glasses, the world melted from focus. The house and trees seemed under water. I leaned against a tree and felt its knobby trunk pressing into my skin like a column of bones."

Rating: 5 Stars
Genre: Contemporary Fiction, LGBTQ
Setting: U.S - Midwest
Timeline: 1980's
Official Summary: At the age of eight Brian Lackey is found bleeding under the crawl space of his house, having endured something so traumatic that he cannot remember an entire five–hour period of time. During the following years he slowly recalls details from that night, but these fragments are not enough to explain what happened to him, and he begins to believe that he may have been the victim of an alien encounter. Neil McCormick is fully aware of the events from that summer of 1981. Wise beyond his years, curious about his developing sexuality, Neil found what he perceived to be love and guidance from his baseball coach. Now, ten years later, he is a teenage hustler, a terrorist of sorts, unaware of the dangerous path his life is taking. His recklessness is governed by idealized memories of his coach, memories that unexpectedly change when Brian comes to Neil for help and, ultimately, the truth.

Two words. Soul crushing, just absolutely soul crushing. Life is tragic, it is beautiful and redemptive, yet it was hard to go through the book with any sort of optimism. Once the milk has been spilled, the stain just won't come out. Things are built up, and they fall to pieces. The characters try their best to pull the pieces back together, but in the end, one just has to keep pushing along, surviving and trying to find some joy in the fact that at least they are loved and not completely alone.

The prose is beautiful, sparse and to the point yet poetic. The characters themselves are relatable. The story features various points of views all from the different characters as they grow up in Little River or Hutchinson Kansas, but mainly focuses on the lives of Brian Lackey and Neil McCormick, both of who had suffered terrible trauma during childhood and how they deal with and then eventually come to terms with what had happened to them.