I read Ta-Nehisi Coates’ “The Beautiful Struggle: A Father, Two Sons, and an Unlikely Road to Manhood” this summer. It’s nonfiction poetic prose about Coates’ experience suffering through expectations, family relations, and racism to ultimately come out on the other side a better person. It was easily the favorite from my long summer book list.
This surprised me, because I’d read Coates’ memoirs out of order and had started with “Between the World and Me,” the latter of his two books, which had left me with a bleak outlook. The 2015 book had left my heart aching with the idea that no matter how hard a black man may try in the United States, there may never be the opportunity for him to excel at the same level as a white man. This broke my heart, and although I kept looking for the bright side, I could find nothing until I read “The Beautiful Struggle,” which was published years before in 2008.
My heart swelled with joy as I read about Coates’ coming of age story, the story of him overcoming his difficulties in his family, his neighborhood, and his school as a young black boy in America. Although he shares some undesirable moments, like the ones about his father’s heavy hand, there is a generally hopeful feeling strung throughout the memoir.
But I couldn’t shake the fact that this book had been written and published years before the less hopeful, and totally harsh book he’d more recently written about the current African-American experience. Ultimately, I came to the conclusion that sometimes we need something more harsh to bring us back to reality. Sometimes we need to see the world more critically, less sunny, and more jarring than we once did; and it is just as important to read about those experiences as it is to read about ones that end sunny.
So I’m not advising to steer clear from “Between the World and Me.” Instead, read “The Beautiful Struggle” first. Savor it. Savor the hopefulness. Savor the warm waves of writing. Savor the childish whim of parts, and the difficult moments which lead to Coates’ brilliance.
And when you read the final page, allow a couple weeks to see the world as he displays it in that book. Then, pick up “Between the World and Me” and see the world as a much more seasoned race theorist, Coates, sees the world now. It may not be a light read, but it is reality for far too many people in this country.
Reach Opinion Editor Rebecca Gross at arts@dailyuw.com. Twitter: @becsgross
