6 Black History Month Reads
[image description: a Black person in a face mask and winter coat reaching up for a book on a tall library shelf.]
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It’s February, which means it’s Black History Month! I always feel conflicted about whether to make a “Black History Month reads” list because we should be reading Black authors throughout the year, but I also don’t want to pretend like Black History Month isn’t a thing.
So I figured I could show you some of the books by Black authors I’ve been reading lately and encourage you to read them and other books like them all year round. These are books I’ve read in 2021, so there won’t be any duplicates from my Best Books of 2020 list, which also has some excellent books by Black authors.
In no particular order…
The Death of Vivek Oji by Akwaeke Emezi
Synopsis from Goodreads:
What does it mean for a family to lose a child they never really knew?
One afternoon, in a town in southeastern Nigeria, a mother opens her front door to discover her son’s body, wrapped in colorful fabric, at her feet. What follows is the tumultuous, heart-wrenching story of one family’s struggle to understand a child whose spirit is both gentle and mysterious. Raised by a distant father and an understanding but overprotective mother, Vivek suffers disorienting blackouts, moments of disconnection between self and surroundings. As adolescence gives way to adulthood, Vivek finds solace in friendships with the warm, boisterous daughters of the Nigerwives, foreign-born women married to Nigerian men. But Vivek’s closest bond is with Osita, the worldly, high-spirited cousin whose teasing confidence masks a guarded private life. As their relationship deepens—and Osita struggles to understand Vivek’s escalating crisis—the mystery gives way to a heart-stopping act of violence in a moment of exhilarating freedom.
Propulsively readable, teeming with unforgettable characters, The Death of Vivek Oji is a novel of family and friendship that challenges expectations—a dramatic story of loss and transcendence that will move every reader.
I finished this book the other night and I can’t stop thinking about it. The novel made me think a lot about the ways we hold each other back and the ways we let fear dictate our lives. And particularly the ways we let fear dictate our love for others and hold them back from being the most fulfilled version of themselves. I don’t want to spoil it, but let me say the last 70 pages will have you on the edge of your seat.
Felon: Poems by Reginald Dwayne Betts
Synopsis from Goodreads:
Felon tells the story of the effects of incarceration in fierce, dazzling poems—canvassing a wide range of emotions and experiences through homelessness, underemployment, love, drug abuse, domestic violence, fatherhood, and grace—and, in doing so, creates a travelogue for an imagined life. Reginald Dwayne Betts confronts the funk of postincarceration existence and examines prison not as a static space, but as a force that enacts pressure throughout a person’s life.
The poems move between traditional and newfound forms with power and agility—from revolutionary found poems created by redacting court documents to the astonishing crown of sonnets that serves as the volume’s radiant conclusion. Drawing inspiration from lawsuits filed on behalf of the incarcerated, the redaction poems focus on the ways we exploit and erase the poor and imprisoned from public consciousness. Traditionally, redaction erases what is top secret; in Felon, Betts redacts what is superfluous, bringing into focus the profound failures of the criminal justice system and the inadequacy of the labels it generates.
Challenging the complexities of language, Betts animates what it means to be a "felon."
I’m fortunate that I’ve never been incarcerated, nor has anyone close to me. Nonetheless, I already thought 99% of people behind bars didn’t belong there and this collection of poetry really solidified that. I was particularly struck by how we as a country continue punishing people who have been released from incarceration, even after they’ve paid their “debt to society.” These poems made me realize that in some ways incarceration never actually ends.
Lakewood by Megan Giddings
Synopsis from Goodreads:
A startling debut about class and race, Lakewood evokes a terrifying world of medical experimentation—part The Handmaid’s Tale, part The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks.
When Lena Johnson’s beloved grandmother dies, and the full extent of the family debt is revealed, the black millennial drops out of college to support her family and takes a job in the mysterious and remote town of Lakewood, Michigan.
On paper, her new job is too good to be true. High paying. No out of pocket medical expenses. A free place to live. All Lena has to do is participate in a secret program—and lie to her friends and family about the research being done in Lakewood. An eye drop that makes brown eyes blue, a medication that could be a cure for dementia, golden pills promised to make all bad thoughts go away.
The discoveries made in Lakewood, Lena is told, will change the world—but the consequences for the subjects involved could be devastating. As the truths of the program reveal themselves, Lena learns how much she’s willing to sacrifice for the sake of her family.
Provocative and thrilling, Lakewood is a breathtaking novel that takes an unflinching look at the moral dilemmas many working-class families face, and the horror that has been forced on black bodies in the name of science.
THIS BOOK IS SO CREEPY! With the covid vaccine rolling out I’ve been thinking frequently about the ethics of medical experiments and the real humans that potentially suffer from experimentation so the rest of us can be safe. I know control groups are necessarily for the validity of the scientific process, but wouldn’t it suck to volunteer for an experiment, likely because they pay participants and you needed the money, and later find out you weren’t being helped at all and that’s why you continued to get sicker and sicker? There are people in control groups who die for the validity of the scientific process. Even if we acknowledge the loss is necessary, that doesn’t erase the pain experienced by the person and their loved ones. And who’s to say that if the person didn’t need money if they would’ve volunteered for the experiment at all… So doesn’t that imply that the majority of the people who are putting their bodies on the line are some of the most vulnerable and least protected among us?
That’s where my mind has been lately and that’s also where this book went. It definitely made me squirm at some parts, which just goes to show how effective of a novel it is.
Blacktop Wasteland by S.A. Cosby
Synopsis from Goodreads:
Beauregard "Bug" Montage: husband, father, honest car mechanic. But he was once known - from North Carolina to the beaches of Florida - as the best getaway driver on the East Coast. Just like his father, who disappeared many years ago.
After a series of financial calamities (worsened by the racial prejudices of the small town he lives in) Bug reluctantly takes part in a daring diamond heist to solve his money troubles - and to go straight once and for all. However, when it goes horrifically wrong, he's sucked into a grimy underworld which threatens everything, and everyone, he holds dear . . .
Confession: I LOVE The Fast and the Furious movies. I love them all (but Tokyo Drift is the best, duh) and can’t get enough. Somehow it never occurred to me to try to find a novel equivalent, but when I happened across this one I couldn’t resist. Robberies, car chases, guns, and a good-at-heart guy who’s trying to get out of the game and keeps getting pulled back in… this novel is an action movie in book form!
The Secret Lives of Church Ladies by Deesha Philyaw
Synopsis from Goodreads:
The Secret Lives of Church Ladies explores the raw and tender places where black women and girls dare to follow their desires and pursue a momentary reprieve from being good. The nine stories in this collection feature four generations of characters grappling with who they want to be in the world, caught as they are between the church's double standards and their own needs and passions.
I’m obsessed with this book! Historically, I’ve tended not to gravitate toward short story collections because if the story is really good then I want to spend more time with the characters, but I’m so glad I got over that mental block. I didn’t know what I was missing out on! I was so engrossed that I read this in a day and am still thinking about some of the stories weeks later. The prose is incisive––it’ll cut you and gut you in the best way.
Real Life by Brandon Taylor
Synopsis from Goodreads:
Almost everything about Wallace is at odds with the Midwestern university town where he is working uneasily toward a biochem degree. An introverted young man from Alabama, black and queer, he has left behind his family without escaping the long shadows of his childhood. For reasons of self-preservation, Wallace has enforced a wary distance even within his own circle of friends—some dating each other, some dating women, some feigning straightness. But over the course of a late-summer weekend, a series of confrontations with colleagues, and an unexpected encounter with an ostensibly straight, white classmate, conspire to fracture his defenses while exposing long-hidden currents of hostility and desire within their community.
This novel deserves every bit of the hype it’s gotten. It’s perhaps the gentlest indictment of the ways white friends and partners let down the Black people they love and the ways in which the ivory tower of academia stays ivory. It’s the kind of novel that’s brilliant in its subtlety and sears like poetry on the page. If I sound inarticulate in describing how great this book is, it’s because I’m still awestruck weeks after reading it.
There you have it! Six of many, many excellent books that would be perfect to read for Black History Month and always. If you want to buy copies of any of the books on this list, I’d appreciate it if you used my Bookshop link. Doing so supports this blog and indie bookstores––a win-win!
