The Fire This Time | Jesmyn Ward #NonFiction

It seemed like it was the right time to finally read this book. 

The Fire This Time was first published in 2016, but my edition is a 2019 Bloomsbury publication. The collection of essays and poems is edited and introduced by Jesmyn Ward.

I like to give space to every essay or article in a anthology; to consider each one in it's own right and to take the time to check out a little more about each author. As I was reading these essays, though, it became apparent that there were quite a few US-specific cultural references and current affairs that I was not particularly familiar with. Therefore, my responses below, may include research I did to clarify what was happening or who was being referred to. 

Many of the essays also gave me pause to consider our own creation myths in Australia, and how the past is still being played out in our present day lives.

• The Fire This Times opens with a poem by Jericho Brown, The Tradition. 
• It's a sonnet that beautifully and brutally compares flowers, blooms and earth to black lives. In just 14 lines, he alludes to the tradition of slavery, the desire for belonging and the current loss of black lives. The poem finishes with three names - John Crawford. Eric Garner. Mike Brown.
• John Crawford III was a 22 yr old man, shot and killed in a Walmart in Beavercreek, Ohio, on the 5th August 2014. 
• Eric Garner was killed on the 17th July 2014 in Staten Island after being placed in a choke hold by police. 
• Mike Brown Jr was an 18 yr old young man shot by police on the 9th August 2014 in Ferguson, Missouri.
• Brown is the 2020 Pulitzer Prize winning poet and this poem can be found in his latest collection also called The Tradition.
• I was so impressed by this poem, I've ordered Brown's anthology in at work. 

• Introduction by Jesmyn Ward.
• Begins with the shooting death of 17 yr old Trayvon Martin on the 26th February 2012 in Sanford, Florida.
• Also Tamir Rice a 12 yr old boy shot & killed by police on the 22nd November 2014 in Cleveland, Ohio.
• Mike Brown (see above)
• Sandra Bland was found hanged on the 13th July, 2015, after 3 days in gaol for a traffic infringement in Waller County, Texas. Her death was declared a suicide. 
• Emmett Till was a 14 yr old boy lynched in Mississippi in 1955. His body was found floating in the Tallahatchie River three days after he went missing. According to wikipedia,

The brutality of his murder and the fact that his killers were acquitted drew attention to the long history of violent persecution of African Americans in the United States. Till posthumously became an icon of the civil rights movement.

• She turned to the writing of James Baldwin for 'kinship in this struggle'. 
• He told her that she was 'worthy of love...worth something in this world...[and]...a human being.'
• His book The Fire Next Time inspired the title of this book.
• Which led her to seek out other writers, thinkers, and voices from her generation. Only three of the submitted pieces referenced the future.
• 'It confirmed how inextricably interwoven the past is in the present, how heavily the past bears on the future.' 

• PART I - LEGACY 

• Homegoing, AD by Kima Jones

• A hybrid poem that begins with a prose section about a family funeral and ends with a free form verse about outrunning the 'gators. 
• Jones is the founder of the Jack Jones Literary Arts whose mission is to 'provide publicity services and support for writers who are unafraid. We work diligently to announce book projects to audiences who seek literary art that is unorthodox, underappreciated, and unparalleled.' 

• The Weight by Rachel Kaadzi Ghansah
• Ghansah won the 2018 Pulitzer Prize for Feature Writing.
• She is  know for her writing about James Baldwin and his historic home in the South of France, including this piece that discusses her first visit to his home.

'If I knew anything about being black in America it was that nothing was guaranteed, you couldn't count on a thing, and all that was certain for most of us was a black death....a black death was a slow death, the accumulation of insults, injuries, neglect, second-rate health care, high blood pressure and stress, no time for self-care, no time to sigh, and in the end, the inevitable, the erasing of memory.'

• Lonely in America by Wendy S. Walters
• 'I resist thinking about slavery because I want to avoid the overwhelming feeling that comes from trying to conceive of the terror, violence and indignity of it.' 
• New-to-me word - cathexis -  'the concentration of mental energy on one particular person, idea, or object (especially to an unhealthy degree).' 
• Discussion about slavery in the northern states, especially New Hampshire.
• Black Heritage Trail, Portsmouth.  

• Where Do We Go From Here? by Isabel Wilkerson 
• 'We seem to be in a continuing feedback loop of repeating a past that our country has yet to address.' 
• After the end of slavery, came the Reconstruction.
• Then the reversal of black advancement - the Nadir. I had heard of the Jim Crow laws but not the Nadir (1890 - 1940). 
• 'Six million African Americans fled that caste system, seeking asylum in the rest of the country during what would become the Great Migration. Denied the ballot, they voted with their bodies.'
• In the north they met with 'redlining, overpolicing, hyper-segregation, the seeds of the disparity we see today.'
• Wilkerson was the first African American woman to win a Pulitzer Prize in Journalism Feature Writing in 1994.

• The Dear Pledges of our Love: A Defense of Phillis Wheatley's Husband by Honoree Fanonne Jeffers
•  Phillis Wheatley - poet (1753-84)
• The Age of Phillis published March 2020 by Wesleyan University Press - 'imagines the life and times of Wheatley: her childhood in the Gambia, West Africa, her life with her white American owners, her friendship with Obour Tanner, and her marriage to the enigmatic John Peters.'

• White Rage by Carol Anderson
• 'white rage carries an aura of respectability and has access to the courts, police, legislatures, and governors.'  
• for every 'African American advancement, there's a reaction, a backlash.' 
• As an outsider, I'm astounded every time I read how easy it is to manipulate the US electoral system - against African Americans, against women, against the poor and disenfranchised. Our system is not perfect, but we make it easy for everyone to vote. Whether you choose to use that right is up to you. It's a right and a responsibility.   

•   Cracking the Code by Jesmyn Ward
• on the difficulty faced by most African Americans when creating their family tree. 
• and on the unsettling & discomforting information that genetic DNA testing can provide.
• is identity genetics, heritage, personal history, or how others perceive you?

• PART II - RECKONING 

• Queries of Unrest by Clint Smith (poem) 
• modelled after the work of poet Hanif Willis-Abdurraqib
• Maybe, maybe, maybe...
• Maybe I'm scared of writing another poem/that makes people roll their eyes/and say, "another black poem." 

• Blacker Than Thou by Kevin Young
• the issue of blackface, 'passing' and reverse-passing.
• I did not know that Thomas Jefferson had a black mistress, Sally Hemings, who gave him six children.
• Young is the poetry editor for the New Yorker. 

• Da Art of Storytellin' (A Prequel) by Kiese Laymon
• 'voices aren't discovered fully formed, they are built and shaped.' 
• storytelling via hip hop and rap.
• Read - Octavia Butler | Kindred

•  Black and Blue by Garnette Cadogan
•  the art of walking and the difference between walking the streets of Kingston, Jamaica, New Orleans and NYC.
• 'I could be invisible in Jamaica in a way I can't be invisible in the United States.' 
• 'walking is an act of faith...we see, we listen, we speak, and we trust...I strolled into my better self...' 
• 'walking while black restricts the experience of walking...it forces me to be in a constant relationship with others...' Understood. It's the same for most women when walking alone.

• The Condition of Black Life is One of Mourning by Claudia Rankine 
• the beginning of the Black Lives Matter movement - 'an attempt to keep mourning an open dynamic in our culture because black lives exist in a state of precariousness.'
• Just Us: An American Conversation published September 2020 by Graywolf Press.

• Know Your Rights! by Emily Raboteau 
• how to talk to your children about protecting themselves from the police.
• 'this mural struck me as an act of love for the people who would pass it by.'
• Raboteau spotted her first social justice mural and went searching for the others (below).

    

•  Composite Pops by Mitchell S. Jackson
• the importance of father figures to kids, especially boys.
• a lovely homage to the men who mentored him throughout his life. 

 PART III - JUBILEE 

Theories of Time and Space by Natasha Trethewey 

• US Poet Laureate 2012 & 2013 .

• Pulitzer Prize winner for poetry 2007.

This Far: Notes on Love and Revolution by Daniel Jose Older     

• 'unraveling all the creation myths this country has always held most sacred.'

Message to my Daughters by Edwidge Danticat

•  African Americans as internal and external refugees

• 'You think that your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read.' James Baldwin

This was an eye-opening read. 

Many of the writers, though, assumed knowledge than many non-US readers may not actually have. I learnt a lot more about African American history thanks to the googling I had to do to find out the who, what, why, where and when discussed in many of the essays. 

Australian history had a brief but equally unedifying experience with slave labour from the nearby South Sea Islands. Given that many Australians are, to this day, completely unaware of this practice, we can claim no moral high ground with regard to race relations or facing the truth about our own history. 

An historical record that only takes note of one side or one version will always be divisive. Books like this, that open all our eyes to another history, another side, another version are important steps towards understanding and acceptance, and hopefully, one day, justice and equality for all.

Highly recommended, but take you time.

Update: 

• Tragically, Jesmyn Ward's 33 yr old husband died in January this year after they all contracted what they thought was the flu. She writes about her grief in a recent Vanity Fair article, On Witness and Respair.
• Respair - OED: noun and verb, meaning the return of hope after a period of despair—only citation for this dates back to 1425. Sadly, it has now fallen out of use. 

Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata

I'm loving Japanese literature more and more. The modern stuff in particular, appears deceptively simple, but as you read, and for weeks afterwards, you become aware of layers of meaning.

The Convenience Store Woman is no exception. On the surface it appears to be a light tale about the life of a young woman who has been a convenience store worker for 18 years. But underneath is all this stuff about Japanese culture, societal expectations, belonging, purpose and how we cope with people who are different from the 'norm'.

Photo by Fancycrave on Unsplash

It's obvious, although undeclared that Keiko is probably on the autism spectrum. She has major issues with empathy, routines and socialisation. Her family have always wanted to 'cure' her. She has spent her life keeping her 'mouth shut' and trying to be 'normal'.

The convenience store is a place where Keiko feels like she belongs. She follows the manual assiduously and learns from (copies) her colleagues in the way they dress, talk, do their hair etc. Routines are her big thing though. She judges weather conditions to perfection so she knows when to stock/promote hot food or cold, she lines up the food in perfect rows, carefully lining up flavours and labels and sorting oldest to newest. She is the model employee and loves her job, finally feeling like she is 'normal' and functioning member of society.

But sadly, society still does not see her as 'normal'. A new employee who pokes fun at the store routines and manual upsets the rhythm of her life and she learns from her sister that, "ever since you started working at the convenience store, you've gotten weirder and weirder."

Keiko's one brief attempt at a relationship shows her what 'normal' might be like, although there was nothing usual or typical about her time with Shiraha in the end. It was an eye opener for her to realise though, that her family and friends were more comfortable with her in an unhappy, dysfunctional relationship and unemployed rather than being happily single and working in a job she loved and was good at. You begin to wonder who the odd people really are after all.

Her attempts to be 'normal' didn't worked. Certainly the scene with her sister and crying baby nephew shows us, the reader, how far from normal human reaction Keiko really is. Her thought processes at this moment are rather startling and concerning; I would certainly not be leaving my baby alone with her!

And this is where Murata has cleverly left it open for us to sometimes feel fear of Keiko and her robotic, almost psychopathic tendencies, but mostly we feel concern for her and just want her to be accepted for who she is. In the end, we're on her side, just wanting everyone to stop dumping their issues about 'normal' on her, so she can be happy in her work.

The convenience store is where Keiko belongs, and when she finally realises that her "very cells exist for the convenience store," we know that she will be as okay and as happy as she possibly can be. She knows what she is and she's content with that and no longer cares what anyone thinks. In the end this is a love story - a love story between a woman and her convenience store!

Favourite Passage:

For the human me, it probably is convenient to have you around, Shiraha, to keep my family and friends off my back. But the animal me, the convenience store worker, has absolutely no use for you whatsoever.

Go girl!

Favourite or Forget?

I loved this slim story a lot. It has given me a lot to mull over about society, appearances and conformity. It was weirdly comic with a dark, almost gothic edge to it. It's a favourite but I will not be rereading it. I will pass it on to my fellow book club members to read for our April meeting.

Facts:

The Convenience Store Woman won the 2016 Akutagawa Award.
Won the Foyles Book of the Year for Fiction 2018.
Picked as one of the New Yorker's Best Books of 2018.
Longlisted for the 2020 International Dublin Literary Award.
It was Murata's tenth novel.
Throughout her writing career, Murata has worked part-time at a convenience store in Tokyo.

Translated by Ginny Tapley Takemori

Portobello Books 2018

First published: 2016

pages: 163

Tokyo Style Guide by Jane Lawson

Thankfully Jane Lawson's book, Tokyo Style Guide is more of a walking tour of Tokyo than a pure style guide, as my interest in shopping is minimal. Unfortunately, it's also a hardback book, so it didn't get to come on holidays with me. I browsed it a little before leaving, but have thoroughly enjoyed going through it properly now that we're back - it has helped to make sense of some of what we saw and experienced as well as providing fodder for next time! 

This is not a comprehensive travel guide for all the things to see and do in Tokyo.
It's best used in conjunction with other guides (unless you're a complete shopping junkie, then Jane is your guru!)

Most of Lawson's walks feature specific shops and areas of Tokyo renown for their stylish wares or style icons, but there's also a lot of important, practical stuff, like where to get a good coffee, yakitori and tasty dumplings. Lawson also includes temples, parks, markets and other interesting sites that the first-time, overwhelmed visitor to Tokyo might miss. We skipped most of the shopping experiences in this book but I still found lots to inspire me in planning where to go and what to expect.

Lawson stresses the 'magic' of finding your own way, 'getting lost in Tokyo is to be expected, so take a deep breath and make it part of the fun.' I was very grateful to have read this particular section BEFORE going to Tokyo. We only got a little bit lost once, although one or other of us got bamboozled by directions numerous times, just luckily not both of us together! (Which probably what makes us such a good travelling combo). It's not always easy to go with the flow when you're tired and stressed in a strange country, but Japan was certainly one of the easier countries in which to do so.

What I really loved about Tokyo Style Guide though were the pages and pages of fabulous, colourful street photography. They prompted me with good ideas before heading off as well as giving us lots of good memories when we got back home.

Lawson's other helpful tips included wearing slip on shoes and checking your socks for holes.

She went through some useful phrases which included the Japanese characters so that you could feel confident about walking into the right toilet block or out of the correct doorway.

Some of the train travel info was out of date as the big wide world of phone apps has made this much easier in just two years.

Tokyo Style Guide was a December 2016 publication - a lot can happen in Tokyo in 18 months!

Do Not Say We Have Nothing by Madeleine Thien

For four days I've been trying to write a review that would do this rich, engrossing, mosaic of a book due justice.

It wasn't so much writer's block as writer's muddle.

There was soooo much to say! I couldn't even decide which lens or which perspective to choose?

Because I was enjoying Do Not Say We Have Nothing so much, I began researching stuff before I had finished reading.

I looked up the classical pieces of music conducted by Glenn Gould* that Thien mentioned throughout the book (Bach's Goldberg Variations and Sonata for Piano & Violin no 4) and listened to them as I read the book.

I researched the politicians and artists who were real people. He Luting (1903 - 1999) was a real composer and he really did say 'shame on you for lying' when hauled before a televised interrogation during the Cultural Revolution.

I researched the L'Internationale** to find out the various interpretations of the phrase that Thien used in her title.

I simply couldn't get enough of this book - I wanted to know more, delve deeper. I wanted to totally immerse myself in the reading experience.

On the surface, this is a story about a Chinese composer called Sparrow and the things that happened to him and around him during his lifetime. A lifetime that encompassed the extraordinary events from the Chinese Revolution to Tiananmen Square.

However, Thien weaves in many threads and motifs, until we have a story within a story, across three generations and two continents. She plays with recurring themes, copies of copies and the cyclical nature of history.

Music is a big part of the story and I found her descriptions of the creative process and the interpretation of music mesmerising.

Equally mesmerising, but in a horrifying way, was the astounding use of double-speak by politicians and revolutionaries during the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution in China.

Thien showed some of the effects of 'self-criticism', 'struggle sessions' and 'denunciations' on the creative mind as they learnt to silence their talents and learnt to live without their language.

One of the major themes developed throughout the story was the life of homosexuals in China*** during the Mao years. Sparrow and Jiang Kai obviously had an intense loving relationship that could not be realised openly. One had to become a hard-line revolutionary, destroying art and lives, while trying to protect his friend from within, who eventually fled the country. While the other stayed, gave up his career as a composer, married and worked in a radio factory of the governments choosing.

Later on, Sparrow's daughter, Ai Ming, also developed very strong feelings for her female neighbour during the heightened times surrounding Tiananmen Square.

Thien intertwined mathematics, etymology, translation, calligraphy, memory, disappearance, loss, free-will, and the nature of time seamlessly. There were moments of humour and moments of pathos.

I have read some reviews that felt Do Not Say We Have Nothing was too wordy. Not for me. I loved every single moment and thoroughly enjoyed the multi-layered, enchanting nature of Thien's loquaciousness.
However this book will not be for everyone.
Hopefully this review will help you decide whether it's for you or not.

Do Not Say We Have Nothing is a keeper for me. I plan to reread this one day and I will be devastated if this book doesn't win one of the book awards that it is currently shortlisted for (Booker and Giller Prizes as well as the Canadian Governor General's Literary Award).

Below are some of the results of my research (thank you wikipedia):

• The Chinese Soviet Republic (1931-1937) adopted a 19th century French socialist worker's song called L'Internationale** as their anthem. There was a line in the original (Nous ne sommes rien, soyons tout) that according to Wikipedia could be translated as 'we are nothing, let us be all'.

• Qu Qiubai translated a version of this song from Russian into Chinese in 1923 which changed this line to mean 'Do not say that we have nothing.'

• To my mind, the Chinese version has a sense of martyrdom inherent in its phrasing. They are being watched and judged by others who say they have nothing. Whereas the English translation seems to resound with solidarity and a proactive intent.

• The anthem later became a rallying cry for the students during the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989.

• Glenn Gould* (25 September 1932 – 4 October 1982) was a Canadian pianist. He became famous for his interpretations of Bach's music. His methods of recording, splicing, mixing and editing his performances in the studio caused controversy at the time. Critics questioned the authenticity of his work and made claims of imitation. More delicious multiplicity on Thien's behalf.

• Historically China, was tolerant of sexual experimentation and same-sex couples. However in 1949***, homosexuality was declared to be a sign of Western bourgeois decadence and vice by the Communist Party. 

• Treatment of homosexuals during the Cultural Revolution was harsh, many were humiliated in public and some were executed. They were forced into heterosexual marriages and all LGBTQ art and culture was destroyed. However, all sexual activity and discussion was considered lustful and decadent during this time. Personal choice was not important. Affairs, sexual freedom and even sex education in schools were all considered enemies of class. Neutral gender clothing was promoted and monogamy expected.

• Some of the books read by the characters during the story - David Copperfield by Charles Dickens and Notes From the Underground by Fyodor Dostoevsky. Friedrich Schiller's On the Aesthetic Education of Man, Kang Youwei's Book of the Great Community and Border Town by Shen Congwen.

• Thien was born in Vancouver. Her mother was born in Hongkong and her father was born in an ethnic Chinese area of Malaysia. They met whilst studying in Australia. The immigrated to Canada in 1974 just before Thien was born.

Where the Trees Were by Inga Simpson

One of my good friends has adored Inga Simpson's previous two books, Nest and Mr Wigg, so when Simpson's third book hit the stands recently, I knew it was time for me to see what it was that Anne loved so much about Simpson's writing.

Where the Trees Were appealed to me for lots of different reasons.

First up the stunning, bark-inspired cover created by Allison Colpoys - love it!

Secondly, the childhood section of this book is set in the Lachlan Valley - which is also where Simpson grew up near Grenfell - and where I spent my teenage years in Cowra.

Most of my friends lived on farms, riding bikes, herding sheep, catching the bus in for school every day, just like the characters in the book. One of my friend's even had a spot on her farm where we could occasionally spot a platypus in the creek.

Everything rang true, even down to the part about the boys leaving school in Year 10 to help out on the family farm, the tragic car accident that happened in every year in a rural school and all the clever science kids heading off to ANU for their tertiary studies.

I realised that Ambelin Kwaymullina's comment “to find yourself in story is the right of every child” is also the right of every adult.  I was ridiculously excited to read a story set in my own backyard and to see so many of my childhood experiences reflected in Where the Trees Were.

The alternating chapters that featured the adult story were set in Canberra. The childhood wrongs were gradually revealed through adult eyes. Subtle layers of meaning were peeled back. Indigenous land rights, burial grounds and environmental concerns were explored.

I learnt a lot about arborglyphs (burial trees), sadly a topic that I had never heard about before.

Simpson also teased us with some tantalising information relating to her next project - a history of Australian nature writers - as her protagonist, Jayne, uncovered some 19th century native flower artwork.

The only jarring note was the alternating chapter switch between first person and third person narrative. There were many times in the grown-up chapters when I wasn't sure who was talking, Jayne, or her partner Sarah. But perhaps I wasn't paying close enough attention.

Overall, a satisfying, intelligent work that has inspired me to seek out Simpson's previous two novels.

Freya by Anthony Quinn

It has been ages since I read a book in manuscript form.
Its kind of fun.

There are no cover distractions, author bio's or quotes from other well-known authors.

It's all about the words on the page.

And the words that make up the story of Freya by Anthony Quinn are very well-chosen ones indeed.

Quinn gives us Freya's coming of age story.

Freya worked as a Wren during WWII.
At the end of war celebrations she meets up with a young woman, Nancy, who becomes her best friend through all the trials and joys of the subsequent years at Oxford and in London as a journalist.

Quinn writes an easy-to-read, easy-to-believe friendship (despite a few writerly conveniences). There are allusions to Brideshead Revisited (especially in the Oxford scenes) and a big nod of homage to My Brilliant Friend.

Apparently there are some characters from Quinn's previous novels in here, but having never read any of the others I was unaware of these connections until recently and it certainly didn't impact on my enjoyment of the story.

This is old-fashioned story-telling at its best.
Quinn uses Freya to show us life in post-war England. We also explore broader world events and issues like the Nuremberg trials, women's rights and the homosexual witch hunts of the 50's through Freya's eyes.

It's not often that I yell at the pages of a book in frustration, but Quinn succeeded in getting me so riled up when Freya was unable to hold her tongue at a crucial point in the story. It was completely in character, but, oh so annoying. I nearly threw the book across the room.

I also enjoyed  the numerous literary references throughout Freya - Waugh, Maugham, Austen, Henry James and Trollope - just to name a few. Books IN books certainly seems to be my thing this year.

And there were loads of Thelonious Monk jazz moments as well (I've included Freya's favourite piece below) to keep us vibing along.

Freya would make a fabulous holiday read - an engrossing, page-turning story - easy enough to put down when it's time for a dip in the pool and easy to pick up again when you're done and the cocktails have arrived!

The Midnight Watch by David Dyer

Subtitled A Novel of the Titanic and the Californian, The Midnight Watch is an incredible, engrossing story by a debut Australian novelist.

Dyer attempts to understand how the Captain and the crew of the Californian, the ship within sight of the sinking Titanic, failed to respond to the Titanic's distress flares - eight in total - until the following morning, when it was all too late.

John Steadman is the reporter who sniffs out that something is amiss. He becomes obsessed with unearthing what really happened on board the Californian that night. He needs to know the how and why...and so do we.

I couldn't put this book down.
I desperately hoped all the way through that somehow Dyer was going to rewrite history and give us a happier ending.

I desperately hoped all the way through that this was not going to be one of those stories that didn't actually answer any of the questions at the end. I really needed to know how this could happen.

Dyer has written a believable, well-researched, deeply psychological study into the nature of human frailty.

He delves into childhood trauma, personality traits and unconscious behaviours.

The real tragedy here is watching history fall through the gaps of miscommunication, assumptions and preconceived ideas. It's about how two men - two decent, flawed men - with contradictory, deeply held beliefs about the role of command, loyalty and leadership failed.

And an answer is provided. One that makes sense; one that feels real.

Due for publication in March with Penguin Australia.