How Are You Going to Save Yourself

by J.M. Holmes

Bound together by shared experience but pulled apart by their changing fortunes, four young friends growing up in the postindustrial enclave of Pawtucket, Rhode Island, struggle to liberate themselves from the legacies left to them as black men in America. With potent immediacy and bracing candor, this provocative debut follows a decade in the lives of Dub, Rolls, Rye, and Gio as they grapple with the complexity of their family histories, the allure of sex and drugs, and the ferocity of their desires.

Gio proves himself an unforgettable narrator, beautifully flawed and unstintingly honest, as he recounts his friends’ triumphs and failures. Whether it’s a family cookout gone wrong, a raucous night in high-society Manhattan turned dark, or the troubled efforts of a hustler to go legit, JM Holmes brings the thump and heat of his scenes to life with the kind of ease that makes us not just eavesdroppers but participants.

How Are You Going to Save Yourself illuminates in breathtaking detail an entire world—one that has been underrepresented in American fiction. At times funny, often uncomfortable, occasionally disturbing, these stories fearlessly engage with issues of race, sex, drugs, class, and family. Holmes’s blistering and timely new voice, richly infused with the unmistakable rhythms of hip-hop that form the soundtrack to his characters’ lives, delivers an indelible fiction that has never been more vital and necessary.

Genres: Fiction, Short Stories, Race, Contemporary, Young Adult, Audiobook, Literary Fiction

256 pages, Hardcover

First published August 9, 2018

About the author

I was born in Denver and raised in RI--the product of He Got Game (just heard about the remake, excited), Lupe Fiasco, Jay Electronica, and the artist formerly known as Mos Def were the true soundtracks to my adolescence and helped me find a lane. I have a tenor sax that I don't play anymore and hope to live in a place that allows dogs in my next home.

Milwaukee as a city has grown on me greatly, though the segregation in these midwest cities breaks my heart. I've gone through three barbers since I been here, but feel good about the current one--we have something special.

Recommended Reading: Terrance Hayes, Rebecca Makkai, Breece DJ Pancake, Ayana Mathis, Walter Mosley, August Wilson, Danielle Evans, and James Hannaham in no particular order.

Reviews

[Reggie · Rating 4 out of 5]

How Are You Going to Save Yourself by JM Holmes is a short story collection that reads like a novel. These interconnected stories follow a decade in the life of four Black men from Pawtucket, Rhode Island: Gio, the star of the show who narrates 7 of the 9 stories, Dub, the villain, Rolls, the philosopher, & Rye, the former football star who never quite made it out.

Having a voice like Holmes's in the world of "highbrow" literature is a complete & utter victory. One example of this victory is his constant use of slang without explanation was something I loved (He mentioned "middies." I've literally never seen "mids/reggie/etc" mentioned in "highbrow" literature). Holmes had great strength in showing vs telling during high pressure scenes. This strength stood out to me in the story Toll For Passengers, where Gio's cousins are in town & they end up sticking up these rich college kids who crash into his cousin's Isaac's car.

Holmes is a BOLD writer. Particularly for two stories. The opener, What's Wrong With You? What's Wrong With Me? & Be Good To Me, the third story in the collection. WWWY, WWWM is BOLD because of how honest he was in tackling the fetishization that can exist in interracial relationships. The closing scene will SURELY get a reaction out of you. He is BOLD again for how complicit he makes the reader in Be Good To Me. Three of the protagonists commit an act of sexual violence & he asks the reader to continue following these men for 6 more stories. This is a demanding request, especially with society's appropriately heightened sensitivity & awareness to sexual violence in this era of #MeToo. To complete this book is to truly embrace/follow along with some severely flawed men & it is a potential test to see how far you can stretch your empathy.

Outside of the uniqueness & boldness of Holmes's voice, HAYGTSY touches on complicated dynamics within a biracial family, how colorism affects lighter skinned men, drug usage/escapism, toxic masculinity, failure & more. Holmes's only missed opportunity was his portrayal of Black American women.

His debut dystopian novel is on the way which will surely be another victory for literature.

[kelly]

Nah. I tried, but I couldn't finish it. I'm not going to rate this. I DNF'd this about 60% through.

This is a coming of age story about four men of color (Dub, Gio, Rolls, and Rye) growing up in Pawtucket, Rhode Island. The book is told through short stories mostly narrated by Gio, though you occasionally hear from the other three main characters. Gio, the son of a White mother and a Black father, struggles with racial identity as he goes back and forth between living with his father in Washington state and his mother in Rhode Island. The other main characters grapple with identity as well, mostly through the power that society affords them by way of their masculinity. The masculinity here is toxic and disturbing, with detailed accounts of female sexual conquests, violence, and drug use, mostly marijuana.

I couldn't get with this, though. While I can understand wanting to explore toxic masculinity, the misogyny in this book was too gratuitous for my taste. The author writes about his male characters engaging in sexist behavior with laser precision, yet the female perspectives remain largely unexplored. Case in point, the story "Be Good to Me," in which a late adolescent Rolls seduces a high school sophomore named Tayla. He coerces her into having sex with him and eventually, he and two other main characters gang rape the young woman in a dark basement. The rape is presented rather matter-of-factly, with a kind of "boys will be boys" nonchalance. I longed for some hint of Tayla's voice, but it doesn't really exist. Other female characters were mostly hollow and one-dimensional--ride or die girlfriends, rachet stepmothers.

Also, the narration was confusing. We know the main characters' names, but each of their voices sounded pretty much the same with very little that distinguished one from another. As I moved from chapter to chapter, I kept having to mentally go back to place the character with the back story revealed from another part of the book. Forgetting a character shouldn't happen in good fiction.

I hate giving this a bad review, but I just didn't like this at all.

[Patricia · Rating 1 out of 5]

I received an ARC, which I appreciated and always commit myself to reading right away. The young men connected in these stories have a culture and language that is foreign to me. Obviously, I am not the intended demographic for this book. Nevertheless, I read on, because it's an opportunity to discover a new writer or genre. But sometimes it just doesn't work out well. I tried to empathize with and understand the narrator, but he pushed me beyond my tolerance. Three adult men gang raping a virgin high school sophomore is a deal breaker. Each story seems to intensify in its violence toward women, and I hate to think how much worse it can get. The book cover reviewers compare it to the work of some other writers who just happen to be in disgrace over their real-life abuse of women. Not a good recommendation after all. I've read hundreds of good books, but this isn't one of them.

[Leah · Rating 2 out of 5]

WORTH READING?
Honestly, NO. The story lines are confusing and I'm only partially sure what messages (if there are any) this book is trying to convey. . . and if I am right then the author should have clarified or done more throughout the book to emphasize than waiting until the end.

FEELS CAUSED?
None that made me enjoy the book. I just felt mostly confusion and a strong dislike of the main characters. Though I was mainly hugely disappointment in the characters, I will say that I liked VERY little and only some parts of their personalities.

GRIPPING? KEEP YOU TURNING PAGES?
Ehh, it mainly held my attention because I was trying to figure out where the hell this book was going but to no avail, mind you. The author just drops you in the middle of the characters stories without much of a cohesive background or the ability for you to understand the characters themselves. Nor do you ever really figure out how they all fit in each other's lives as there is only one time that the four of them are actually all together. As the novel progresses, we just keep getting dropped along their timeline with little frame of reference and little explanation of how everything, and everyone ties together.

This book is raw and (after piecing together what I could) more complex and deeper than the jumbled and fragmented pieces of lives that is this novel, lets on. It has the bones to be good if the message was clearer and each story told had more meaning. And the character's weren't assholes.

I feel like I got the moral/message of the story: how black men are made into what they are by society and the circumstances that they are born in, and "Black Lives Matter". But there were so many irrelevant things going on that I'm not sure.

I didn't like many of the characters (mainly their actions) but I still felt bad for them. And though I understood that the story is trying to convey that this is what the environment made them into but its like did it though...? Because smoking weed, hustling, and being tied to the hood is one thing but raping a girl is a totally different thing.

WHY SHOULD YOU READ IT?
This book may be beyond me and my comprehension but I still do not believe that there are many compelling reasons to read this book. Beyond seeing for yourself if my review was right, that is. Which if it is not and you have a differing opinion, please come back and comment to tell me so that we may have an enlightening conversation about this book.

[Eric Anderson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sometimes I feel like fiction that falls somewhere between short stories and a novel is my favourite kind of writing. This sort of book probably occurs for practical reasons when the author initially started writing short stories and then groups them together with some connecting characters (since novels traditionally sell better than collections of short stories.) But I think this form allows an opportunity for the author to explore many different perspectives or themes using different narrative styles and points of view. The effect can be really powerful in how it shows a multifaceted view of a story. Some examples of books like this are “Send Me” by Patrick Ryan, “Anything is Possible” by Elizabeth Strout, “All That Man Is” by David Szalay, “Vertigo” by Joanna Walsh, “Sour Heart” by Jenny Zhang and “The Shore” by Sara Taylor. Adding to this style of storytelling is the debut book by JM Holmes “How Are You Going to Save Yourself?” which follows the stories of four black men living in Rhode Island as they progress through the tricky stages of young adulthood.

Holmes often uses dialogue with great precision to evoke character and create dramatic tension in different stages of these men’s lives. The book begins with a conversation between friends Gio, Dub, Rye and Rolls as they share stories about sex and relationships with white girls. Discussions about sex as power play, economic disparity and institutionalised racism feature throughout the book making for some edgy exchanges that reveal a deeper kind of truth. Holmes is unflinchingly honest in presenting the boys’ vulnerability such as a scene where a black man feels self-conscious about being naked in front of a white woman “I told myself I wasn’t on an auction block in front of her.” But some of the most unsettling stories focus more on the perspective of female teenagers or young women that these boys are dating. He sharply portrays egregious instances of misogyny and violence towards women such as when a girl is coerced into having sex with multiple boys: “He stared Tayla straight in the eye and she felt her body tense. They were all focused on her, but not really her, some imagined girl. Their eyes were buried in her body.” These descriptions of sex strikingly show the interplay between the gaze and the imagination, as well as how prejudice and fear can be deeply internalised. The stories expose how girls and women are unfortunately often the recipients of abuse because of these issues and the power dynamics involved. They also describe how when people are totally stripped down (both physically and mentally) unconscious concerns about skin colour suddenly fill the minds of the parties involved.

Read my full review of How Are You Going to Save Yourself? By JM Holmes on LonesomeReader

[Crystal Zavala · Rating 1 out of 5]

I won a copy of an ARC from a Goodreads Giveaway in exchange for an honest review.

This book was disturbing. I understand that disturbing things happen in life, but I didn't feel like there was any reason to share these stories. The stories didn't come from the victims point of view, nor did the victimizers learn anything from their actions. These events felt like they were treated as if "boys will be boys". Multiple rapes and a gang rape is not acceptable in any scenario.

I also found the change of narrators to be confusing and jolting. Many of the characters had different nicknames that didn't match their names and were near impossible to figure out which story went with which character.

I do not like giving reviews like this and I almost didn't finish the book, but I wanted to follow through with my obligation of receiving the ARC.

I will say that Mr. Holmes is a good writer, I just felt like these stories were left unfinished or I didn't understand the importance of the stories.

[Angelia Menchan · Rating 5 out of 5]

It’s impossible for me to say how these interconnected stories touched me. Some were hard to read, others laugh out loud funny but they all rang true. The narrator is conflicted in who he is and spends a lot of time deflecting or avoiding. The others are as fully fleshed out through his eyes. So many things, real things are covered, race, biracial interconnectedness, childhood friends and separation, date rape... I mean it’s all there and more than anything it made me think... and feel.

[AM · Rating 2 out of 5]

Lost me at the rape. Found it hard to read objectively about these characters after that story.

[Katie Frederick · Rating 3 out of 5]

I bought this at a book sale because I wanted to read abt a new england experience that wasn’t my own. this delivered on that front.

this book was intimate and emotional and deeply sad at times — you can tell the author is talented. the narration can be confusing and some plots aren’t given as much detail (which I think is the point but I didn’t love). ultimately heartbreaking and I did love that the author gave each character redeeming qualities even as they were actively flawed.

[Michelle · Rating 3 out of 5]

Review to come.

[Kim Bakos · Rating 1 out of 5]

First, I will say I didn't finish. But the reasons why I couldn't finish are what caused me to abandon this book.
I got through the first of the four stories. There was drug use - both weed and coke - running throughout. That itself goes against my grain but wouldn't keep me from reading.
My HUGE issue w/ this book is the way that sexual things are dealt with. As a woman, I would label it assault, even if the women were consenting, to some extent. In one scene, the woman says the N word, and he becomes very forceful and overpowers her. In another, during oral sex, again, the male is rough and forceful. I quit reading when one of the guys takes a 15-year-old girl to the basement and allows his friends to come and have sex with her as well. With the whole #MeToo movement right now, I can't stomach a book that makes it obvious that the feelings and wants of the woman mean nothing.
I wanted to read this book because I think it is important to understand where others who are different from myself are thinking and where they are coming from. But it wasn't worth reading such awful stuff to get an idea that these boys were horrible, but seemed to be the norm in their circle.

[Karee · Rating 4 out of 5]

Story #3 really really really pissed me off! So much that I had to put the book down a few weeks before I was able to continue. To say this book left a lasting impression is an understatement. This would be a great bookclub read. You will need someone to discuss all these feelings with.

[Amanie · Rating 1 out of 5]

Nope.

[Kathy Ding · Rating 2 out of 5]

I won this book as part of a Goodreads giveaway.
Rating this book was difficult because I'm trying to reconcile the distastefulness of the content with the interesting and smooth style of the book. It's not clear but I truly truly hope that the events were fictional.
This is a coming of age novel about 4 young black males living on the east coast and I just could not relate to or emphasize with any of them based on their callous actions and behaviors. There is no coming back from that gang rape scene of a high school girl. There is an overall attitude of "I deserve this and I want this" but no sense of working for anything or proving your worth. The author doesn't provide judgement or morals or any message for anything that happens in the book. The only thing that is clear is that no one in this book is ever going to save themselves nor do they even remotely want to. The misogyny and racism (towards anyone who isn't black) are unfortunately strong with this book.
For a published book, this had a few typos that were overlooked by the editor.

[Nia Forrester · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was incredibly difficult for me, for so many reasons. It was about self-destruction, alienation, the often violent, dysfunctional rites of passage for young men (some of which leave damaged young women in their wake). It was about Black masculinity in a white world, and the all too often unevenly-yoked nature of the relationships between Black men and their women. And it was about the challenges of loving someone who is not the same race as your own in a country where race always matters.

This writer is extraordinarily talented, and has such confident and unique agency of expression that I was impressed by his ability to leave words on the page without regard for whether much of his audience would even get it. And yet, it wasn’t at all self-consciously literary. I look forward to reading whatever he does next. His is an important voice. This one won’t be for everybody, but it moved me.

[Michelle · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm grateful to this author for his brutal honesty. His courage and fortitude have given me much to think about. He does ask the hard questions. These questions to me are necessary in order to collectively change. The sexual abuse statistics are a reality even if we avoid them. The book makes me reflect on our 'conditioning'. This book asks us to examine a reality, one we may not be familiar with.

"It's an unflinching look at themes that not too many authors are eager to tackle, and a book that asks important questions and challenges the reader to answer them honestly, as uncomfortable as those answers might be." NPR

https://www.npr.org/2018/08/23/639650...

Thank you for having the courage to share such painfully honest stories.

[Bglad · Rating 5 out of 5]

Mr. Holmes provides honest commentary on race, gender, socioeconomics, sexual assault, substance use, and the intersections between them. Personally, the characters experiences, their missteps, and their emotional reactions (or lack thereof) allowed me insight into a community that I am not directly familiar with. Is the subject matter triggering at times? Yes. But to avoid these topics because they make us feel uncomfortable is ignorant. Rather then stop reading when I came across misogynistic undertones throughout the book, I used it as an opportunity to consider how and why youth are socialized to believe there is power in the mistreatment of women. Holmes' writing led me to consider what needs to change in our society to better support characters similar to Gio, his friends and family. I finished the book in a day, and am still thinking about it three weeks later.

[Janelle Bailey · Rating 5 out of 5]

58: How Are You Going to Save Yourself by JM Holmes...pre-Wisconsin Book Festival. Many of these stories abraded my emotions like coarse sandpaper and kind of left me that way...roughed up and raw. And yet...I fully enjoyed reading them, I mean...if "enjoy" is still the right word when you're taken through a tension-filled and painful experience, with willingness to hurt for characters like you would for a friend, with the ability to do nothing for them. That kind of enjoyment. These characters are strong and compelling, confident in their individual places and perspectives, pulling me along through the stuff that is their lives and willing me to care. I do. The book jacket says Holmes is working on a novel. I can't wait to read it!

[Kelly · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was an interesting but also slightly disturbing read. Although it comes off as a coming of age book from the perspective of a group of young men, their endeavors were a little harsh for my taste.

[Jessica Sorenson · Rating 1 out of 5]

I really wanted to give this a go, but the story was all over the place and had to bail at gang rape..

[Adena Lavin · Rating 5 out of 5]

I normally read non-fiction only so this book was already quite out of my wheelhouse. It seemed like a nice middle ground between fiction and realistic reflection of an upbringing that I never would have any experience with. Also as an asian woman of color it was even more appealing to me.
That being said - i don't know if saying I "loved" the book would be appropriate given the content. I was beyond fascinated and hooked to it from start to finish. It takes you on a wild yet very somber ride through the lives of the 4 main characters, focusing on Gio.
The frankness of Mr. Holmes' writing makes you feel as though you are a fly on the wall watching everything go down - an unedited, non over the top reality show of a world only discussed when speaking about crime rates. Just like life, the story isn't in perfect chronological order, and not everything makes sense all the time.
I noticed in other reviews people commenting on the seemingly lack of "lesson learned" and feeling of disconnect between the characters (floating through life, making moves that don't always make sense). I believe that was Mr. Holmes' intention. I felt he made you feel how the characters were feeling throughout their life and rarely does that come in a neatly wrapped box with a bow tie.
All in all, I would recommend this book over and over again to anyone who is willing to have their eyes opened to a world we are rarely given an honest and raw view of.

[Rachel León]

My expectations might have been a little too high for this one. The blurbs on the cover had me thinking this book was going to be required reading for me. Holmes is indeed a good writing, but I wasn't gripped by these stories like I thought I'd be. Some fell a bit flat for me, while others felt like a variation of a previous story. I think I would've enjoyed it more if I went into it with zero expectations because it's a pretty solid collection.

[Jess · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm a sucker for interwoven short stories. I could have done without the violence against women in a few of the stories, but overall they were raw and emotional, cutting to the core of the characters.

[Elena · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was a heavy coming of age story following a group of young black and brown men in Rhode Island. Holmes wrote about both the mundane and tragic in a poetic way.
*Thanks to Netgalley, the author and the publisher for an ARC in exchange for an honest review*

[Ross · Rating 3 out of 5]

Hmm this book took me for a few spins and I didn’t love a lot of them. The end was … weird but I guess some semblance of a call back. I appreciated the short story feel but yeaaa. Interesting

[Maria · Rating 3 out of 5]

"People are trapped in history and history is trapped in them."

Review to come.

[Alicia Farmer · Rating 3 out of 5]

A mixed collection of stories about young Black men and the adults they become. Several stories -- interestingly, those undercut with sexual violence -- were sharp and powerful. A few were without focus. All shared a tension grounded in maleness: How do men relate to each other? to women? What do men expect of themselves? What do they expect of women? of family?

No one is liberated in these stories. Parents are saddled by children; adolescents are saddled by the usual pressures of sex and drugs; everyone is saddled by race, whether it's being Black or being not Black enough. This is true whether the characters are wealthy or poor, educated or not. The artist is a slave to alcohol and weed; the pro-ball player can't do right by his children or women; the city worker dabbles in drug dealing with none of the terror that faces him on the job.

I left this book feeling exhausted. Given the title, I suspect that's what Holmes hoped to convey. Many different people, all with little hope.

[Readersaurus]

Compelling storytelling, but hard to take. There were times when I had to put down the book and walk away, to clear away the imagery and shift the feelings. This is a window into a world I don't know - casual drug use, sexual violence, male friendships that last across the years but that hurt rather than support them, confusion, pain - these are ugly stories. There were times when I wasn't quite sure which character was telling his story - The boys seem lost, confused, and hiding pain most of the time, and they do terrible things. Holmes understates some of it, leaving it on the page for the reader to circle back to and say wait - did that just happen? All of the relationships feel like poison.

[Rachel · Rating 2 out of 5]

I worked through finishing this because it was so short - but a lot of it was hard to take. The misogyny was so strong, and largely met with an uncritical eye. I understand this is about toxic masculinity, but there isn't enough pointing out just how toxic it is. I am particularly disgusted by one of the early chapters, where three of the young men are college-age and gang rape a 15 year old. Not that it would be any better if she was older - but it's nauseating to read. I thought it would come up again later - with remorse, with guilt, something - but it's just another episode of violence. This felt more to me like a cataloging of the violence, drugs, and immaturity of a group of friends, with an occasional sprinkling of self awareness. By the time I got to the end, the moment of confrontation between Gio and his uncle about police brutality felt out of place, because it was one of the few times when the book felt like it was getting to something honest.

[Michelle Bacon Curry · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is a struggle and is not for the faint of heart. I can’t really tell if it was exploring the misogyny, sexual assault, and self-destruction of these characters’ world, or if it was simply reporting out, or celebrating. The lines were blurred, intentionally or not. Something about the tone put me in mind of “A Million Little Pieces” in the sense that it seemed both critical and slightly enamored with the darkness it explored, but the book is MUCH better written and deeper than that one, of course. Anyway, if you are in the mood for something to rip your guys out just a little and to make you disappointed in all of the characters you encounter (and, who ISN’T in the mood for that from time to time, right?), AND if you aren’t triggered by drinking, drugging, and sexual assaulting while confronting racial issues, then you may want to read this book.