Review: Between the World and Me (by Ta-Nehisi Coates)

 

My Rating: 5 stars

Browsing through my book news emails a couple weeks ago, I kept coming across reviews for Ta-Nehisi Coates’s newest book The Message (which I have not yet read but definitely want to) and it reminded me that I’ve had his award-winning masterpiece Between the World and Me on my TBR forever, but never got around to reading it.  Well, recently, I had the chance to pick this one up and I have to say, I was absolutely blown away.  In this book-length autobiographical essay, which is written in the format of a letter to his teenage son Samori, Coates shares his struggles growing up as a black man in America.  In meticulous, beautiful prose, Coates presents the harsh realities of America’s deeply ingrained attitudes toward race, placing it within the context of our country’s fraught history and the implications it has had (and continues to have) on society.  Coates does not mince words – he is searingly honest about the “American plunder” and how the nation was built on the backs of colored bodies.  At the same time, this essay can also be read as a father’s passionate (and desperate) plea for his son’s continued survival navigating a system where the odds are perpetually stacked against him.

In her endorsement of Between the World and Me back when it came out in 2015, the late, great Toni Morrison not only called the book “required reading,” she also praised Coates as essentially the heir-apparent to James Baldwin’s legacy: “I’ve been wondering who might fill the intellectual void that plagued me after James Baldwin died. Clearly it is Ta-Nehisi Coates.”  Indeed, a close reading of Coates’s book shows the numerous ways in which he pays respectful homage to Baldwin, from the epistolary format in which he frames his personal narrative (which is a nod to Baldwin’s famous letter to his nephew in his seminal essay collection The Fire Next Time) to the writing style, phrasing of words, narrative voice, and most significantly, emotional resonance.

This is a profound and powerful book – a modern classic that is absolutely a “must-read” for all Americans.  At once a gut-punch and a wake-up call, this book is not an easy read by any means, but it is a necessary read as well as a timely one (especially given the events of the last few days). Highly, highly recommended!