I’ll be honest: it really concerned me that this book was written by a white guy. I have hesitations about whether this is entirely his story to tell, and I’d like to hear a POC’s perspective on it. I think it was written and handled well, but I’m saying that will the full awareness that it’s not fully mine to judge. Frankly, this is a story that includes the n-word a lot and presents the first person perspective of a Black man in a world where slavery was never abolished in four states. There are points in the story where he is shackled, beaten, kidnapped, called various racial slurs, and forced to accompany a white woman while pretending to be her servant to gain access to certain places. There is definitely part of me that wonders what exactly made Ben H. Winters sit down at a desk and decide that this was a book he should write.
From my own perspective, though, since it’s the only one I am qualified to speak from – I’m awfully glad he did. I loved every page of it. I thought Victor was one of the most rich, complex, beautifully written characters I’ve read, and I think I fell a little bit in love with him. I felt like the plot dragged a bit around the middle and was unnecessarily convoluted, which should really make it a contender for four stars rather than five, but I just loved the inside of Victor’s mind so much that I can’t stand not to give it five. It was really, really neat that it was set in the city where I live (most of it, anyway), with vividly detailed descriptions of places and streets. I may read this again at some point, which is really saying a lot.
When I read this last year, I came across this criticism while reading up on the author.
And while I understand the inclination to question whether it’s his story to tell…I’m also perplexed by the criticism. Not the question itself, as you’re using it, but by those who criticize him for doing it.
I mean, if a black person reads this and thinks it’s unrepresentative, or offensive, or doesn’t do the history justice – fine. I can get behind that (not that its my job to validate their reaction). But to question whether or not he should’ve told this story because he’s white?
I don’t know. I don’t understand that. Isn’t that kind of against the idea that we can build a dialogue with one another? Doesn’t that undermine one of the core principles of literature?
Looked at another way, I’ve always felt that one of the greatest things about reading was that it gives us the ability to live different lives. If I read a book by a woman, I feel like it gives me a small window into the world as seen by the woman who wrote it (a perspective I don’t have). By extension, I think one of the great things about writing is the attempt to duplicate this interaction between author and reader, but from the other direction.
I’m wary of writers who always seem to be telling some variation of their own story. If they aren’t striving to understand different perspectives, I don’t think they generally have much success in the long term.
So long as the topic is approached with respect, and everyone pays attention to their own contexts, I think it’s a perspective worth exploring.
Am I making sense? This is something I grappled with when I read the book, and I don’t feel like I ever settled on an answer. I’m not responding because I think you’re wrong. I want to emphasize that. I think this is hazardous ground to be walking, and I think Winters did a pretty good job, overall (from my perspective as a white male), and I also think that someone who didn’t do as good a job could be so deeply in the wrong that everything I just wrote is nullified (for instance, white people telling people of color how to respond to Trump’s election)….but the people who discount this because the author is white just leave me with more questions than answers, I guess.
Your comment makes perfect sense, and I agree with your take on it. As I read the book, I struggled with whether I was or should be bothered by the author being who he was. Ultimately, I felt like it was handled beautifully, but when it was time to write a review I couldn’t not feel strange about it – a white woman assessing how well a white man wrote the first person story of a black man experiencing extreme oppression. As uneasy as I felt as a reviewer, it’s hard not to wonder if the author also felt uneasy writing it.
Personally, I think it was a phenomenal book, and an easy contender for top 5 of the year. I think discounting it would be a huge mistake. I also think that my uneasiness is definitely impacted by the current political climate and the concerns I have about white people speaking for POC in (generally well intentioned) efforts to be an advocate and an ally. In both situations, I feel like there’s a medium to strive for – showing up and being an ally and leveraging one’s own privilege for the benefit of those who have less, while also deferring to people’s own perspectives about their own lives. In my opinion, Ben H. Winters did a great job of the former (and I have no idea how he would handle the latter, although I think he’s earned the benefit of the doubt with such a great book), but like I said…my opinion isn’t the bottom line here.
Thanks for the discussion. It made me think!
It’s hard for me to remember my review, but I think you did a better job tackling this issue than I did (I think I just brought up the criticism then dismissed it).
This was definitely one of the highlights of the year for me (though it had less impact for me than Octavia Butler’so Kindred), and this issue has stayed with me longer than I expected it to.