Beef Gets Passed Down Like Named Brand T-shirts Around Here. Always Too Big.never Ironed Out.
"Beef / gets passed down like name-brand / T-shirts around here. Always too big. / Never ironed out."
Content warning: discussion of death, gun violence
Young adult author Jason Reynolds published three New York Times bestsellers in 2017: Miles Morales, a novelization of the black-Latinx Spider-Man; Patina, second in a series of contemporary novels about middle school track athletes; and most recently, Long Way Down, a young adult novel in verse that is both heartbreaking and eye-opening. Reynolds has accomplished a lot in a few years: his first novel came out in 2015. Last month Entertainment Weekly called him the "Bright Prince of YA" because Long Way Down's brilliant poetry takes his career to new heights.
In Long Way Down, fifteen-year old Will grapples with the aftermath of his older brother's murder. Will's neighborhood has three rules: don't cry, don't snitch, and do get revenge. Will learned the rules from his brother Shawn, who learned them from their father, who learned them from his brother. After Shawn is shot, the rules are at the front of Will's mind. He takes the gun from Shawn's side of their room and has to decide whether he'll fulfill Rule #3. Most of the novel takes place over sixty seconds, encompassing the elevator ride down from Will's apartment where he faces the ghosts of his past and begins to process his grief. At first, he believes he knows who the killer is, but the story becomes more complicated as he descends.
Beyond the powerful story Reynolds tells, the novel's poetic composition is incredible. His free verse poetry is carefully arranged on each page to offer the greatest possible impact, and Will's conflicting emotions shine through. Reynolds deftly weaves motifs like anagrams or t-shirts throughout the story, linking Will's past, present, and future; his history shapes who he is now. Sixty seconds are drawn out at great length, but this feels freeing rather than tiring. Part of what makes Long Way Down so successful is its intense intimacy. Will speaks directly to the reader from the very first page: "I haven't / told nobody the story / I'm about to tell you." Through Will, Reynolds invites the reader to lean in and listen closely.
Long Way Down offers a look at the violence black communities struggle with, and though this isn't a brand new topic to tackle in 2017, something about Reynolds' approach feels revolutionary. He doesn't examine what happens when outsiders infringe upon black youth in their spaces like he does with co-author Brendan Kiely in All American Boys or like Nic Stone does in Dear Martin. Instead, Reynolds offers an insider's view on the complexities of a black community.
Reynolds says Long Way Down was inspired by his adolescence: he lost a friend to gun violence when he was nineteen. So he writes about Shawn's death with nuance; he doesn't simplify the reasons why it might have happened or minimalize Will's pain. He doesn't play it safe, telling it like it is: "In case you ain't know, / gunshots make everybody / deaf and blind especially / when they make somebody / dead." In Will's neighborhood, events like Shawn's murder aren't unusual, but Reynolds doesn't criticize systemic violence on a surface-level, where the blame fall to the people who live there. That approach would be unproductive and incorrect. Instead, he offers black youth a piece of art they can use to unpack their own blackness, loss, and family identity.
Long Way Down is more than a just a moving novel in verse—it's a project. Reynolds is carving a literary space for black teens. This fact shows on every page, in every word, and beyond the poetry. Reynolds dedicates the book to "all the young brothers and sisters in detention centers around the country, the ones I've seen, and the ones I haven't." He calls out to them again in his acknowledgments, refusing to let often forgotten youth be left out. A reader could miss this message if they didn't read every single page, but in including these lines, Will's story gains greater value. Long Way Down's ending is ambiguous, so Reynolds tells black kids that their story is valid no matter its outcome. Reynolds' acknowledgements also give thanks to his black community, "the people who have been with me in precarious situations where our humanity curdles and our ethics are put to the test." His mission has been to write the books he didn't have as a teen, and he remembers those who helped him survive to make it this far.
Perhaps if Reynolds had books like Long Way Down, books that depict an authentic black experience or were written by a rap-inspired poet, he would have read a novel before age seventeen. His bio says that none of his books or awards "are as important as a young person saying they feel seen." Reynolds couldn't relate to the books he was assigned in school, because books about his experience weren't provided or didn't exist.
Long Way Down's impact extends beyond Reynolds' work; it's part of a larger project to create children's literature that represents all young people. Much of the responsibility lies with literary agencies and publishing houses, the gatekeepers between story ideas and the books children read. Readers are lucky that Jason Reynolds has been given the chance to shine because his success paves the way for great diverse books to come. There's no longer a basis for the "diverse books don't sell" mentality. Long Way Down debuted at number four on the New York Times Best Seller list, and hasn't dropped off the list yet, holding its own up against YA powerhouses like John Green and Leigh Bardugo.
It's hard to call Long Way Down Reynold's best book because he has written nine great ones. When I met him, he thanked me for complimenting how smart his work is and asked to shake my hand. He walks into a room and he's so beautifully casual, so unapologetically black, that you can't help but be in awe. Long Way Down doesn't speak to every black experience, but we shouldn't expect it to. What it does capture, impeccably, is one teen's struggle to find himself when loss is complicated by culture. I might call Reynolds the savior of YA, but he hasn't done this work alone. And yet, with this book, he just might have saved someone.
Source: https://thebooktote.wordpress.com/2018/01/19/tragedy-family-and-identity-in-verse-jason-reynolds-long-way-down/
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