Book Review: Black Bottom Saints by Alice Randall

 

Black Bottom Saints

by Alice Randall

A literary historical novel, broken up into chapters based on the everyday “Saints” the narrator, Ziggy Johnson, has known over his years as an important figure himself in the Black Bottom area of Detroit.

“By the end of World War I, Black Bottom was established as a municipality (along with New York’s Harlem and Chicago’s Bronzeville) with a clear claim of being one of the three most economically, politically, and artistically powerful Black communities in America.”

 This novel relates the life of Ziggy Johnson through his interactions with other historic figures, who he refers to as Black Bottom Saints.

“Black Bottom Saints – people who had suffered so much, and so differently, but who had each found a way, or made a way, to experience radical joy.”

One of my favorite chapters is when he shares about Tim Moore, but as a ghost that comes to visit him in his hospital room. Is he hallucinating? Perhaps, but it’s still a very warm recollection of what made that person special to him. He laughs so hard at one point that the nurse threatens to give him a sedative. “When Tim came back later, I told him not to do anything that would make me laugh or cry loud, so we just softly talked over the old days.”

My mind boggles slightly at the concept of writing a book from the perspective of someone who actually existed. It has been done time and again, but as a writer, I can only imagine how difficult it must be to inhabit a person’s mind, to worry about getting it right, sounding authentic. Luckily, the gentleman in question, “Ziggy” Johnson, was a writer himself and so there was already a good record of articles from the newspaper, and even articles specifically about a number of these people.

The author relates the story in the style of a first -person reminiscence, making the story feel like sitting and listening to an old man talk about the most colorful and special people he knew in his life. It’s engrossing, though sometimes confusing at first because of the particular language she uses, I had to look up a few terms.

She really does cover a lot of territory in this book, facets of life, bringing important truths into succinct clarity.

"The war don't end when the last gun is shot," George Stanley said. "That's the end of a battle. The war ends when you stop waking up shaking in the middle of the night. Too many men, Colored Girl, win the boots on the ground war then lose the war in they head when they're back safe in their bed."

The author does a tremendous job of bringing these characters to life. I found myself filled with emotion at the hardships they had gone through and cheering for their successes. I highly recommend this book.

Moses, Man of the Mountain by Zora Neale Hurston

Today's Story Musing entry is guest written by Maryalice Little of the Southeast Steuben County Library.

 

Moses, Man of the Mountain

by Zora Neale Hurston

After being introduced to Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God, I wanted to enjoy more of this author’s rich use of descriptive language.  I read her next work, Moses, Man of the Mountain, and I became even more impressed by the writings of Hurston (1891 - 1960).

In Moses, Man of the Mountain, Hurston retells the story of Moses, who, though born of humble lineage, is raised as royalty.  After rejecting his privileged position, he spends years in another land then he returns to lead his people away from their hard, but familiar, lives of bondage in Egypt to a life of self-government in a new land.  

Hurston’s writing style breathes humanity into familiar characters with insightful descriptions of their thoughts and actions.  Her writing style integrates the Biblical story of Moses with the legendary tales of Moses from Africa and the West Indies; it encourages the reader to appreciate the humanity that surrounds Moses’ power--because his power “does not flow from the Ten Commandments.  It is his rod of power, the terror he showed before all Israel and to Pharaoh, and THAT MIGHTY HAND.”   ---from the author’s introduction to Moses, Man of the Mountain

In this version, Moses is described as being a very curious child, and it was “the gardeners and the grooms who caught his attention....There was one old man who tended the horses.  He had answers in the form of stories for nearly every question that Moses asked and he told stories unasked because they just came to him to tell.”  So Moses gained a foundation of knowledge and wisdom about the ways of the world.  

As Moses grew into manhood, he was relegated to learning the ways of the military, as his elder brother would someday become the reigning Pharaoh.  His aging mentor advised him to learn to fight on horseback, not in chariots, as his elder brother did.  Moses learned strategy by listening to the men of war and by experimenting with maneuvers.  “There was something about him, outside of being the grandson of Pharaoh, that made men listen to him with respect.  There was something about him that assured them he was a companion to be relied on in times of danger.  They wanted to follow him into any escapade he thought up.  He was the young men’s choice for a leader.”  And so they came to beat the Pharaoh’s “finest chariot force in the world” at the bi-annual military maneuvers.  

These experiences and qualities served Moses well when he struggled to lead his people to a new way of thinking and a new homeland.  Negotiating with Pharaoh to let his people go required strategy, inspiration, patience, understanding, and perseverance.  The forty years that they would spend in the wilderness were not just about traveling a geographical distance, but also about learning a new way to think. Moses understood this.  In their first battle along their journey, Moses answers, when his young assistant, Joshua, questions whether the men will follow his lead, “Young or old men will follow you if you got that something to make ‘em willing.  You are going to be one of the great men at arms, watch my word.  This will be good practice for you and it will be good for the people.  Once they win a battle, it will tend to lift up their heads.  Now they are scared of everything and they think nothing is scared of them.  They need to win something.”  And they did.  

Again and again, the people say that they want freedom but act in ways that indicate that they are reluctant to let go of their past dependencies.  And, again and again, Moses consults with his God of Sinai and leads the people onward to their new life in a new land.

Zora Neale Hurston tells this ancient story in a rich language that brings compassionate insight to the timeless journey of humanity.

Maryalice K. Little

Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston

There’s something about having to read a book that makes me not want to, no matter how good the book is.  I put off reading Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston for as long as I could because it was chosen for our Community Read.  Finally, running out of time, I got the book on CD, performed by Ruby Dee, and listened to it in the car on the way to work and home again.

I fell in love with it.  I would take this book any day over Romeo and Juliet.  (I do like Shakespeare.  I just don’t consider R&J much of a romance.) 

The over arching theme in this book, for me, is Janie’s search for love.  She is searching not just to find love for herself but to find out what love is. 

The book begins as Janie returns to Eatonville one evening, having been gone with Tea Cake for some two years, and tongues begin to wag as people watch her pass.

“It was the time for sitting on porches beside the road.  It was the time to hear things and talk.  These sitters had been tongueless, earless, eyeless conveniences all day long.  Mules and other brutes had occupied their skins.  But now, the sun and the bossman were gone, so the skins felt powerful and human.  They became lords of sounds and lesser things.  They passed nations through their mouths.  They sat in judgement.”

Only her friend Phoeby speaks up for her then goes to take her some food and hear what has gone on.  Janie is annoyed with the busybodies.

“Now they got to look into me loving Tea Cake and see whether it was done right or not!  They don’t know if life is a mess of corn-meal dumplings, and if love is a bed-quilt!”

Janie resolves to tell Phoeby everything that has gone on, not just for the past two years, but to help her understand, she must go all the way back to her childhood.  The novel encompasses decades and Janie is married three times over the course of the novel.  The first time her grandmother, Nanny, marries her off very young to a much older man, concerned that Janie have all the material things in life and protection that Nanny never had. 

“Janie had no chance to know things, so she had to ask.  Did marriage end the cosmic loneliness of the unmated?  Did marriage compel love like the sun the day?”

As many women found out, though love could grow under the circumstances of an arranged marriage, there was no guarantee and Janie did not find love with her first husband, Logan Killicks. 

Janie stays with him for a couple years but Nanny passes away and with nothing other to hold her there, she is interested when Joe Starks shows up and starts courting her.

She gives Logan one last chance but he refuses the connection she offers and the next morning Janie runs off with Joe, who she calls Jody.  They get married and head for a growing community Jody has heard of in Florida, Eatonville.

Janie spends over 25 years with Jody but it isn’t the marriage she had thought it would be.  Jody is more intent on having a trophy wife to stand by while he opens a store and becomes mayor.  He doesn’t want Janie to speak her mind or even be seen too much.  He even makes her cover her hair with a kerchief so that other men can’t see or touch it. 

Janie finally has her say when Jody is on his death bed, “Ah run off tuh keep house wid you in uh wonderful way.  But you wasn’t satisfied wid me de way Ah was.  Naw!  Mah own mind had tuh be squeezed and crowded out tuh make room for yours in me.”

Love itself can make a common ground for meeting on because both people want to please one another and both have equal power to hurt one another.  But that requires a willingness to connect and let it be seen.  Logan wouldn’t let it be seen in himself, he wanted her gratitude.  Jody just wanted someone to obey him and love him.

“…now you got tuh die tuh find out dat you got tuh pacify somebody besides yo’ self if you wants any love and any sympathy in dis world.  You ain’t tried tuh pacify nobody but yo’self.  Too busy listening tuh yo’ own big voice.”

Jody dies and Janie finally has time and money and on one to please but herself.  Then Tea Cake starts coming around.  Theirs is a different type of relationship from what Janie has experienced so far right from the beginning.

“He set it [the checkers game] up and began to show her and she found herself glowing inside.  Somebody wanted her to play.  Somebody thought it natural for her to play.  That was even nice.  She looked him over and got little thrills from every one of his good points.”

But the town doesn’t take so well to Janie taking up with Tea Cake, who is 12 years younger.  They think it’s too soon and that he isn’t an appropriate person.  So Tea Cake resolves that they need to start fresh somewhere else.  They go south to work in the bean fields and Janie has never been so happy, until the hurricane.

It’s a tragedy, there’s no denying that.  They only have two years together but Janie has more happiness in those years than in the last thirty.  She has finally found love, figured out what it is, how it is different, and even learned to love herself.

"… love ain’t somethin’ lak uh grindstone dat’s de same thing everywhere and do de same thing tuh everything it touch.  Love is lak de sea.  It’s uh movin’ thing, but still and all, it takes its shape from de shore it meets, and it’s different with every shore.”

This short review cannot even begin to give you a sense of the beauty and breadth packed into this book.  I hope you'll read it for yourself.