A Wonderful Midnight

Upon completion of Sistah Souljah's latest novel, Midnight, I sat back and sighed. It has been a while since it happened, since I was unable to put a book down until it was completed, craving the next step, desiring a positive future of the beloved characters. But I clung to this novel like a newborn to its bottle, unable to release my fascination of the world Sistah Souljah masters, flips upside down, complicates, and then serves back in easy fashion.

Would it be disrepectful to drop a "damn," in at this point? As a writer, a book reviewer and an attorney by trade, I am rarely left with just an expletive to express myself. But my response to the intricate and expert puzzle that Sistah Souljah weaves, a tight knitted pattern of beliefs stretched taut against the conflict and confusion of American society, was one word, breathed out in a long sigh. Damn.

The immediate feedback wasn't as strong as I was hoping for,leading me to delay buying and exploring Midnight. I think we, the readers, were hoping for another flashy Winter Santiago, and at the same time dreading another story about another drug game fiasco.

The literary world has changed since The Coldest Winter Ever. Thousands of lesser copycats mingled with so many poorly constructed street tales has, in some way, dampened us. Made us more skeptical and less willing to believe or even care about the street life. How could Sistah Souljah reenter the quagmire, writing in the same style, from the same point of view, spitting the same ole same?

She couldn't. She didn't.

Let's deal with some of the skepticism first. The main complaint that I repeatedly hear is that Midnight's experiences are unbelievable for a 14 year old. Firstly, I have to recall that readers compare the story to their own experiences and I am so glad to know that so many readers cannot relate. I, however, can. At age fourteen, two of my girlfriends had babies, I had already accompanied another one to the abortion clinic. Public transportation wasn't even a question, I moved around to school, after school functions, part time job and life. The boys in our world were already on their hustle, survival was already an issue. At age 14. I lived in upstate (western) New York, in a much smaller city named Rochester. Light years behind the fast paced scramble that is NYC.

But to say that Midnight, who had to operate as the man in his Muslim household isn't believable at 14 identifies the clear separation in class and economics in this country. It also tells how those who have had better fortune can't relate to the maturity others have to reach to survive.

I find Midnight not only credible, but his story endearing and his struggle startlingly real. And his youth is apparent in so much of the book: still hustling ball games with his friends, strategizing to go to the movies with girls, rolling blindly into parties, unable to ask for help to his many questions, taking forever to put two and two together about Bangs, still being open and able to love Akemi. That type of love couldn't and wouldn't be available to him at an older age, when skepticism sets in and makes love a ridiculous thing.

BTW - since when is 14 young in the hood? And since when is 14 young in Brooklyn? I'm just trying to understand.

The next complaint I heard was that the book is offensive to African Americans.The story is told from the point of view of an African immigrant from an influential Sudanese family who finds himself in the Brooklyn hood. His viewpoints and experiences of African Americans are limited to those stuck in the same neighborhood as him, as filtered through his 14 year old mind. And it occurred to me that, on so many levels, I relate to his struggle.

Is it easy to be a devout Christian in inner city America? How diligent must one be, trying to live according to the Bible, when no one else that you know expects or even understands that type of discipline. When your peer group actively ridicules devotion. How much more difficult would it be to live as a devout Muslim here, having come from a society structured around religion. Wouldn't any 14 year old boys statements be general and broad, encompassing the "world" as he sees it. And, despite himself and his moral compass, he still finds himself considering love with Bangs, rescuing Bangs in the only way he knows how. Considering resting his beliefs and marrying her and protecting her anyway, despite her family having so severely tainted her. He still longs for her in a way that he doesn't for any Sudanese woman, although he adores his culture. In the end, his love is for a woman with an artists eye, a woman like his mother, a woman preserved and loved and cherished by her family, despite the difference in culture.

Let me digress here - Do we preserve our baby girls? Are African American young girls affirmed, uplifted, protected - as a general rule? Honestly? Is it automatic that before you step to that her, you better come correct to her father, make sure you make it through her brother and be able to provide for her. If your answer to that is yes, then lets back up for a second - maybe you don't recall R. Kelly. The "pied piper of R&B" - proverbial young girl lover who our community discusses, our comedians joke about, and everyone shrugs and plays his latest joint. Or, how about Cam'Ron, taking his rap dis to the level of threatening to "bust off" in Nas' four year old daughter's face, without outrage from our community. Media images, music, comics, many aspects of our culture boasts of misogynistic intent, disregard and disgust for our young girls.

That is the beauty of literature, reading what is stated and what isn't. Midnight's blanket statements about my people are less offensive to me than the bookstores whose shelves are full of stereotypical nonsense, published by Black people.

Read real literature. Think on it. Compare it. Expand and grow, agree and disagree. That is what good literature is intended to do.

And no matter what you say, you can't deny that Midnight is true literature. It is a wonderful study of inner conflict, love, expectation, loyalty and trying to live devout. It remembers the purity, the unspoken uniqueness, of real love. Midnight is worth the read.