I just finished reading Guardian by Julius Lester and feel somewhat disappointed. To be fair, I’m not the best person to judge this book because I’ve spent more than a decade focusing on representations of racial violence; I haven’t read *every* novel about lynching, but I’ve read quite a few, and this one didn’t quite live up to my expectations. At times it reminded me of two short stories I teach: “Blood Burning Moon” by Jean Toomer, and “Mob Madness” by Marion Cuthbert (the latter describes a lynching from the perspective of a white mother who later commits suicide and infanticide). Yet those short stories had more complexity, despite being much shorter than a novel. I think Lester accurately depicts the depravity of Southern white men, and I particularly appreciated the way he exposed southern chivalry for the lie that it was; white women in the novel are objectified, degraded, and treated only as disposable sexual objects. But all of the characters simply appear in the narrative–they don’t quite evolve, and so their relationships to one another are flat. Also, at the end of the day, all Southerners who participated in lynchings weren’t *exactly* depraved, evil, or immoral individuals. Or they weren’t ONLY those things…Lester showed some ambivalence on the part of Ansel’s father, Bert, who allowed a black man to be lynched for a crime he clearly didn’t commit. But I would like to have seen more complexity, more ambiguity. It’s too easy to say one wealthy white woman in the town hated racism, hated her family, and carried the white protagonist off to Massachusetts. It’s too easy to say Zeph Davis, the actual murderer, was just a sadistic sociopath. The truth is, lynching was in keeping with what Jacqueline Goldsby refers to as “cultural logic”–these horrific murders weren’t “out of the ordinary,” they were, in fact, in keeping with the values that made mob members identify as patriotic Americans. They weren’t “not themselves” in that moment–they were more fully themselves than in any other moment. If you haven’t read James Baldwin’s “Going to Meet the Man,” please do! It’s not fair to expect any author to live up to Baldwin’s standard of brilliance, but in order to understand mob mentality, you’ve got to consider the psychology of lynching. In a way, Lester’s novel would have been more compelling to me if he had doubled its length and taken the time to show how blacks and whites lived intimately in the South, and loved one another–went to church, committed acts of kindness and generosity–and STILL joined mobs and cut the fingers, ears, and genitals off lynching victims. If this novel is a teen’s introduction to lynching, I’m afraid it doesn’t DO enough. The white men are all despicable, the black characters say next to nothing, and the white women are hard to comprehend: how do you grow up white in a small southern town with racist parents and yet somehow develop sympathy for blacks? Usually that’s the result of having some intimate relationship with a black person–the family cook, housekeeper, nanny, etc. Just being abused, neglected, and labeled “white trash” doesn’t make you see blacks as your allies. If anything, it’s more likely to make you desperate for someone else to look down on. Anyway, it’s a short read and still compelling, just not truly satisfying for me.
Guardian
March 13, 2009 by elliottzetta
Posted in historical fiction, multicultural literature, race & gender, reviews, young adult novels | 20 Comments
20 Responses
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Mob mentality….
Gotta go and read Baldwin now.
I wonder how much of Lester’s novel was edited out? Seeing the publishing world from different angles now makes me question not only writers and the choices they make, but also the editors and the guidance that is given through the book making process.
It also raises the issue of audience and who a writer is thinking of when a story is being crafted. Do you think Lester is talking to the same audience as Baldwin, Toomer, or Cuthbert?
Does it matter?
I haven’t read any of these books yet, so I am hardly one to criticize. But I am interested in writers and their relationships to their audience.
Lester writes a fairly lengthy epilogue in which he describes his own relationship to lynching and his decision to tell the story from a white boy’s perspective. At this point, he’s so lauded and well-known, I would doubt that much was edited out of his manuscript (which began as a film treatment). If anything, the violent rape & murder of the white girl would have been toned down, but it’s described graphically. The lynching less so, but it’s still accurate. I think developing relationships between characters is simply more time-consuming…for me, it’s tedious having to describe the environment, what furniture’s in a room, what people are wearing. I think I prefer to focus on dialogue b/c that’s the fastest way to establish the relationship between two people. But every character needs a back story, I think. And that takes time…I’ve got the pdf of Baldwin’s story; I’ll send it to you and anyone else who’s interested.
I read your review and the follow-up comments with interest. While I am not in the habit of responding to reviews, I am doing so now because I felt that your criticisms of the novel were not about the novel I wrote, but more about the one you wished I had written. I certainly agree with you that a novel that did all that you wished mine had done could make for a great book.
However, I could not do any of those things because I chose to write from the point of view of Ansel as an adult seeking to make peace with something that happened when he was 14. Understanding the point of view is crucial to understanding the novel I wrote.
You will recall that the novel opens in the first person. Then it switches to third person. But the epilogue is, also, in the first person. The implication of this is that the body of the novel – the third person section – is being written by Ansel, the first person voice of the introduction and epilogue. This, then, raises a critical question: Why doesn’t Ansel tell the entire story in the first person? I won’t answer that question, but it is a crucial question to understanding the novel.
Because it is Ansel who is telling the story, the scenes between Mary Susan and Zeph, the scene when Zeph kills the frog, and the scenes between Ansel’s mother and Esther may or may not have happened. Ansel is trying to understand what happened when he was 14 and uses his imagination to try and understand Zeph’s behavior as well as his mother and her eventual suicide.
My interest was exploring the character of this one person and the impact the lynching had on him. And the theme of the book, the explanation for its title comes at the very end when he concludes that the way he atones for his silence the night of the lynching is to guard the memories, and not do what Americans love to do, which is to put anything traumatic “behind us”. The least he can do is to make the pain of black people his own pain – to the extent that is possible. And by guarding that pain, he will be less likely to inflict pain on someone else, less likely to be silent when he sees pain being inflicted on another.
The novel you described would be an important book, but it is not the novel I wrote or had any intention of writing.
Incidentally, nothing was edited out. My editor did not even ask me to tone down the rape scene or the lynching. Neither did the publisher’s legal department ask me to change anything.
As for what audience I was writing for — I write for whomever picks the book up. I would not know how to write for a black audience or white audience, etc. I write the best I can at that particular moment in my life.
Thanks for reading GUARDIAN and writing about it. Even though I think you wanted it to be different than it is, I am thankful for everyone who takes the time to read something I’ve written. Though I disagreed with what you wrote, it is apparent that you care about books and writing. Those of us who write need people who care that we write, who care what we write. Please don’t stop caring and expressing that caring.
Julius Lester
Thanks so much, Mr. Lester, for taking the time to share your insights and intent with us! I never imagined you would read the review or respond, and you’re right–I wrote about the novel I wished had been written. Perspective is key, and I read the “middle section” as though it were told by an omniscient narrator–not Ansel. If you wanted to convey his unreliability as a narrator, why switch to the third person? You made some interesting narrative choices, and I do respect your ability to tell the story in a concise manner–novels can very easily get away from a less disciplined writer (I’m speaking from experience, of course!). I don’t know if you read the preceding post, but we were discussing the appropriateness of teaching lynching in the secondary school curriculum. Have you found students (or teachers) are ready/equipped to deal with Guardian and the traumatic history of racial violence it invokes?
Wow, I feel so un…something. I really loved this book. Couldn’t put it down. Hm.
You are NOT “un-” anything! Different kinds of readers look for different things in books…I know I’m invested in interiority–I want to know what makes people tick, I want their history, their psychology, what they feel rather than just what they DO. How old would your son have to be before you let him read Guardian?
I love this conversation! Not having read the book I will refrain from speaking on it (until I do!). However, I would like to note the need for us writers to have these types of discussion with one another as evolving artists, not critics. I think we all have “the perfect novel” in our heads, and we read every other novel in comparison to that. Nikkey Finney told my Cave Canem workshop once that “we should critique the poem for what it is doing, not what we want it to be”. I tell that to every one of my classes since then. What is imperative as writers looking at each other’s work is to remember that when we make a move to talk about a book (love it or hate it) we do so out of care. By that I mean because it inspires emotion in us, comforting or unpleasant. Ambivilance is the worst thing, really because it is then that the writer has not done her part to reach ANY READER. I fear sometimes that because my books are in the “Af-Am” ghetto within the slum of “Kid Lit” they become so marginalized that they fall off the page. Of course, I can’t touch everyone in the world with my work but I hope to evoke something in those that pick it up on their own or are pushed towards it by someone else. I love writing for young African-Americans because they need it. But I hope that Armenian-American kid will find some joy in my work, too, not just pass it up because there’s a black kid on the front cover or because the back cover tells her that it has to do with the institution of racism.
I digress. Zetta and Julius, both of your works are sincere and important and PERFECT exactly as they are. Children need you both (and all of us!) to have these conversations, even if they never see them because it makes for more great books in the future. It’s this kind of caring about each other’s words that provokes the healing that is meant to come out of the pages.
Much love,
Tonya
http://www.tonyacheriehegamin.com
Well, this has definitely jump started my morning (yes, I know it’s almost noon).
What an amazing time we live in to be able to discuss the work, and our experiences without even being in the same room. Glad to be alive!
As for my comment on reading audience, I was thinking more about the age range, less about race or gender. Z, do you find that your stories are crafted with a certain “persons” in mind or do you write from a position of purpose first?
I guess I’d agree with Mr. Lester on that point–I’m aware that an audience exists, but I don’t write with the intent of catering to any group’s particular needs. I’m coming out of the tradition of black storytellers, black writers, black intellectuals–so that’s my starting point, and I have an understanding of how my work “fits” (or not!) into those particular discourses. But you never know how a particular story will be received. I think a lot of writing is intuitive, so from what I know about the children in my community, I can “guess” how they’ll likely respond to my stories. But kids will always surprise you, and each reader–regardless of age–brings their own particular needs and expectations to a book. I’m tempted to say women read differently than men, but I know that’s not really true…we’re all members of overlapping communities; I can’t assume all black women will like my writing, and I can’t assume *I* won’t like any writing by black men. You have to take it one text at a time, even as you continuously build upon the foundation of books you’ve read in the past…
Tonya–I agree with everything you said *except* that a book can be “perfect.” No book’s perfect, but its limitations can be the starting point for further discussion, growth as readers and writers, and future narratives. But I should remember my own training (by poet/scholar Phil Harper) and “lead with what I like.”
Oh Zetta, I mean perfect in a holistic sort of way, just like you are perfect exactly as you are– human (ie: beautifully flawed). I decided when M+O 4EVR came out that I would be happy to be “righteously misunderstood” because some critic called it “flawed but lovely”. Then I realized that that was probably the best compliment a human could ever get! I’m not talking about conventional perfectionism but realistic perfection which to me equals “exactly as it should be”.
I do have issues sometimes with the age of my audience, too. Although Pemba’s Song’s main character is 15, I wrote the book for a younger reader. I wouldn’t have minded it being labeled as ‘middle grade’ so that more kids would be ‘allowed’ to read it. However, I’ve been getting some flack about M+O being “too old” because it has LGBT themes and molestation as well as drugs. But you know, does that woman who writes “Gossip Girl” have anyone saying, “hey, your characters are all underage yet they go into bars and clubs and drink and have sex”? Not so much as if she were in the black community I think. Double standards. I think kids will read what interests them and we shouldn’t really censor it, just be aware and willing to discuss. I read “The Bluest Eye” in the 6th grade and of course I was too young to understand all of it but I read it for more than just the rape scene. In fact, I don’t think I really realized that there was a rape scene until I was older! I think she just wrote it so beautifully that I understood that there was a violation of the child and that was all I needed to know.
If a kid these days watches any amount of tv or gets online by themselves they are pretty much aware of a lot more than they let on. Not that this is right or anything, but I think it’s just about accepting it and using it as a tool to enlighten them.
“Flawed but lovely”–I think that IS the ultimate compliment! I do think rigorous, thoughtful critique makes us aware of our limitations and can then enable us to push farther; there’s a lot of mediocrity out there (in books), and I sometimes wonder if we overlook it for fear of being called “a hater.” Anyone objecting to gay characters *because* they’re gay is being neither thoughtful nor rigorous. There has been a lot of criticism of the mature content on Gossip Girl, but parents have to be realistic: either you ban the show and hope your child doesn’t find away around the ban (which s/he will), or you sit down WITH THEM and try to have a meaningful conversation about what’s on screen. I think the same is true of books–parents should KNOW what their kids are reading, so they can talk not just about the content, but HOW to read and interpret it as well. I don’t have kids, so I can only imagine just how time-consuming that might be…but wouldn’t it also be a rich opportunity to connect with your kids? I worry about girls reading PUSH without adult supervision, b/c young readers don’t always see the difference between pornographic material and an explicit rape scene. The key is conversation…
How old would my son have to be to let him read the book? Well, it’s been awhile since I read it, but if I remember, there was some sexual content and language that made me a bit squeemish about a kid reading it, but the main character is 14-ish, I think, so it probably depends upon the maturity of the kid. But thats the old-school dad in me speaking.
I enjoyed reading the responses, and there are a couple I wanted to respond to.
elliotzetta: “If you wanted to convey his [Ansel’s] unreliability as a narrator, why switch to the third person?”
That wasn’t why I used third person. I used third person because Ansel needed to keep a distance between himself and the traumas. He writes about himself in the third person because he doesn’t want to relive the traumas, and yet, he must confront. And I don’t know that he is unreliable as a narrator. He is trying to understand what happened and why, so he tries to put himself into Zeph, Mary Susan, and his mother to make sense of why they acted as they did. He is looking for emotional truths, not necessarily factual ones.
elliotzetta: “Have you found students (or teachers) are ready/equipped to deal with Guardian and the traumatic history of racial violence it invokes?”
While reviews of Guardian have been very positive, I am not aware that the book has made its way into the classroom, and I wouldn’t expect it to until the book is published in paperback — if it is. However, I don’t think it will make it into many classrooms because of the rape and lynching scenes, as well as the use of “nigger”, even though this is history. I find it ironic when people do not want to deal with a book that tells the stories of what people actually went through.
Several people asked about what age I thought a child might be ready to read Guardian. I think the publisher has slotted the book for ages 14 and up. And that feels right to me.
Shadra: “Do you find that your stories are crafted with certain ‘persons’ in mind, or do you write from a position of purpose first?”
Probably a little of both, if that makes sense. I am aware of the age group for which I am writing, but, at the same time, I am aware of the story I want to tell and what’s the best way to tell that story. I strive to be honest to the story without condescending to the reader, regardless of age.
But writing children’s books is interesting because when I say that I am aware of the age group, of necessity that age group has to include adults because it is adults who, for the most part, buy books for children. So the book must appeal to adults as well as the specific age group of children that the book is for. In the texts of picture books I’ve written I deliberate include little jokes for the adults who will be reading the books to children.
Ultimately, however, I have no control over who reads what I write. Although I have written about various aspects of black life in the U.S., it is as important for white children to know black history as it is black. My YA novel, WHEN DAD KILLED MOM, is about two children whose father kills their mother. All the primary characters are white, but this does not mean I am writing for a white audience, since black children have been the victims of their fathers killing their mothers.
The most that we as writers can do is to write as well as we can, given what we know and who we are at the time. And as a writer, my hope is that the book will find readers who will read with their hearts as well as their minds, take from my book what they can use, if anything, and leave the rest.
Julius Lester
I’ve decided to throw this out there, just in case Mr. Lester’s still listening; it’s not every day an elder-artist joins our conversation…
“Those of us who write need people who care that we write, who care what we write.”
Is it the responsibility of the author or the publisher (or both) to generate that caring? Can we really trust, in this society, that our writing will find a home–will reach a wide range of readers? Do you let go of a book once it’s written, or do you try to break down the barriers that prevent librarians/educators/readers from embracing something that might cause them discomfort?
[…] of note this week. Check out Zetta Elliott’s blog for a review of Julius Lester’s GUARDIAN, which turns into a conversation on writing, audience, and editing with a surprise visit by none […]
Thanks everyone for this conversation. It has made my weekend.
Have great and productive weeks!
I am still listening. The questions you raised are very important. It reminds me of when I asked the publisher of my very first book, LOOK OUT, WHITEY! BLACK POWER’S GON’ GET YOUR MAMA!, if he was going to advertise the book. He said, “We don’t know why a book sells. But if it starts selling, that’s when we will start advertising.” Publishers today depend almost entirely on the writer to sell the book, even though I think that’s the job of the publisher. But this is why publishers like to publish books by celebrities, because the celebrity’s name will help sell the book.
So, no, you can’t trust that your book will “reach a wide range of readers”. Unfortunately, you have to help make that happen by getting bookstores to sponsor signings/readings, find media outlets for interviews, etc. Because I’ve been publishing for 40 years, I don’t do any of those things. I don’t have the time or the energy, and once I finish writing a book, I am done with it. It is generally a year, at least, between the time I turn in the book and publication, and by the time the book comes out, I have moved onto other things. I feel sorry for younger writers who are not only expected to write a great book but are then asked to go out and sell it. But that’s the reality of the publishing world today.
It is important to have a good relationship with someone in your publishers publicity department and to give that person ideas about who to send your book to for advance comments, possible reviews, etc. In addition, if you are writing children’s books, you should subscribe to The Horn Book, School Library Journal and/or Library Journal, not only for the reviews but especially to keep up with what’s happening in children’s literature. Horn Book publishes the dates for book submissions for the various prizes- Newberry, Boston Globe-Horn Book Award, etc. And you should ask your editor if your book is being submitting for these awards. You should keep an eye on the readers’ comments on Amazon about your book. And if you are not already a member of a list called Child_Lit, you should check it out. It is a list serve devoted to children’s literature, and its members include editors, teachers from elementary school through college, critics, and writers – Jane Yolen, Phillip Pullman, Arnold Adoff and I are three of the more well-known writers who are members. The list has about 2,000 members, the overwhelming majority of whom merely “listen”. So you are under no pressure to contribute anything, but the discussions give you a good idea of what’s going on in children’s literature from a variety of perspectives. I don’t recall off-hand the address to join but I’m sure it’ll turn up from a Google search.
Publishing is, now more than ever, a business, and you should treat it as such. And understand that you are only one writer among many that your editor works with. Nobody is going to care as much about your book as you do, except your agent who should be doing as much of this work for you as he or she can. But if your agent is not proactive, then you have to be to get your book the kind of attention it deserves.
But the main thing is the writing. If the writing isn’t good, if the story isn’t emotionally gripping, then nothing else matters. I’ve met people who wanted to be writers but when I probed a little bit it became clear that writing was less important. Being a writer is a social identity; writing is some of the hardest work there is on the planet. I am a compulsive rewriter, and there are pages in books of mine that I rewrote at least 25 times. I rewrite and rewrite until each word is the best word for that particular sentence; I rewrite and rewrite until the sentences sing; I rewrite and rewrite every sentence says exactly what I want it to say, or comes as close as I can come knowing what I know about writing and life at that particular moment in my life.
I’ve had books that have done very well, and then there have been books which have come and gone almost as if they never were. My first publisher was right; no one knows why one book sells and another doesn’t. However, I know that I have not helped some of my books along, but I’m not a salesman, and that’s just how it is. And if I were a young writer starting out now, I don’t think I’d make it as a writer because I’m not a salesman. Then again, if I were a young writer now I suppose I’d have to learn to be a salesman, whether I liked it or not. That’s the reality in publishing today.
Julius Lester
Okay, how did I miss this conversation? Zetta and Mr. Lester thank you both!
It’s a hustle, no doubt about it. I sometimes wonder if publishing is yet another arena where “integration” didn’t quite lead to the progress we perhaps imagined…how might things be different if black authors had gone the separatist route, had published only with Third World Press, Broadside, etc. Has the quest for a wider audience changed the way we write, what we choose to write on? Mr. Lester continues to produce provocative work, but he’s got seniority; what about those of us who are just starting out–are market demands and the current publishing “system” limiting our power/presence/visibility? Or am I falling into the nostalgia trap?