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When Blackness Was a Virtue
Jaffe captures the chaos of the protagonist's sudden downturn in his personal life, dealing with an ex-wife who makes his life miserable, and trying to keep his children happy in the midst of it all. He finds release for his frustrations through the violence of his bookie job as he tries to make sense of what happened to his life.
300 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 14, 2014
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
May 26, 2014
Hayes Fanning is the average guy trying to get by. He has two daughters from a failed marriage with a woman who is still combative with him. He works for a greeting card company, toiling in drudgery, while having a portion of his check going into child support. He loves his daughters with all his heart, and wrestles with the anger issues and financial difficulties of life. He also sides as a collection agent for a mysterious bookie named Mr. Eugene. When he loses his job, the finances become even more crushing, and he had to see how far he will go with the work provided by Mr. Eugene. It’s a very contemplative piece, with details to the extreme and a wavering timeline as he jumps from the present moving story to reflections of the past. A very character-driven piece, Jaffe puts you inside the head of a believable character in a realistic situation and how he deals with it. The inner question that Fanning has to answer is, “How far will you go to provide for your children?”
January 13, 2015
I'm not sure that this book demonstrates that blackness is ever a virtue. It is a story of a divorced man who is struggling though life and trying to raise two daughters. He collects debts owed to Mr. Eugene to make ends meet.
His interactions with his daughters and his fears and concerns all seem very real. As a parent, sometimes it's nice to feel like you're not the only parent who feels or acts a certain way. But it bothers me that at least twice in the book Hayes says that the most important thing is his daughters' happiness. There is so much in life that is out of our control that happiness can be unattainable, and the ceaseless focus on that goal can leave one very unhappy.
But I did care about Hayes and his family, and hope that they do eventually find some happiness.
His interactions with his daughters and his fears and concerns all seem very real. As a parent, sometimes it's nice to feel like you're not the only parent who feels or acts a certain way. But it bothers me that at least twice in the book Hayes says that the most important thing is his daughters' happiness. There is so much in life that is out of our control that happiness can be unattainable, and the ceaseless focus on that goal can leave one very unhappy.
But I did care about Hayes and his family, and hope that they do eventually find some happiness.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews