S'il faut mourir

by Junius Edwards

Sud des Etats-unis, milieu des années 1950. Will Harris a 21 ans. Majeur, il décide de s'inscrire sur les listes électorales, comme tout bon citoyen américain. Mais, dans le Sud, les Noirs qui veulent voter, on n'aime pas ça...

Faut-il lutter pacifiquement pour faire triompher les droits civiques ? Se résigner à garder une place déterminée par la couleur de sa peau ? Ou partir à l'Ouest pour une nouvelle vie ?

Même si la ségrégation est partout, Will veut encore essayer, ne pas fuir. Il croit en la constitution de son pays qui déclare tous les citoyens égaux. Mais à quel prix ?

Genres: African American

125 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1963

Reviews

[MJ Nicholls · Rating 5 out of 5]

The lone novel from Junius Edwards, who went on to found an advertising agency and quit fiction writing, is a brief shocker of white supremacist violence in the Dark South (where else?), where a young black man attempts to register to vote, and is met with AmeriKKKa’s finest rootin-tootin’ pond scum, who escalate the matter to a predictable pitch of barbarism. The flat, matter-of-fact prose works well for the suckerpunch the novel delivers, and the last third of the novel foreshadows the black humour of Percival Everett at his angriest and sharpest heights.

[Cody · Rating 5 out of 5]

Dialogue is tough enough, but when you give credence to the reader's capacity for filling in almost all the movements and physicality, the gift is a novel unburdened by specificity. That is If We Must Die, and it is a head knocking masterpiece in miniature. Details and minutia too often indemnify the audience from applying a given work from their own reality, something Edwards rejects. There is no salvation, no enlightenment, no devil in the details. The devil is everywhere, always, and if you cannot see the repeating lockstep pattern of two forward/three back endemic to America's logical, formal design flaw, you mayhaps be lucky enough to be lead to him in his night woods. Hell, you may very well be the motherfucker himself, just unaware. I would never auger evil as incapable, like water, of assuming the form of its container. As such, I am regularly testing the form AND function of my own glass' resistance to breakage; it is better I choke on my own shit than pulling under others instead.

[taylor :) · Rating 5 out of 5]

this is so good. very lucky used bookstore find.

[Zadignose]

A well-constructed and disturbing narrative, with the best moments of the book coming in the end; a powerful illustration of the cruel ignorance and barbarity that fuels race-hate; but also a book that is marred by shallow characterization, a reluctance to use strong language when it's called for, and a confusion in its intersection of realism, parable, and farce. So, in summation, it found the right tone in the end, I wish it had found it earlier, but either way, it will leave a lasting impression.

[NJ · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book received a lot of criticisms that it didn’t explore the seriousness of the concepts of the time in enough detail. ~of course those were criticisms written in the 60s and 70s where expectations of Black literature were more…heavy.~

What this book didn’t say, was felt. The desire to be seen as a real human, the hope of being actualized as an American citizen, the rebellion of speaking back to unfair authority, the curtailing of the tongue to make your oppressor feel better about themselves, the hope of a better future, wanting to make your mother proud, wanting to die rather than lose one’s masculinity, the fear….Felt it all.

There were a few scenes that stood out to me the first is when Will stood in the voter registration office to apply for his registration and was being grilled by the office worker. He had to work twice as hard to receive nothing. Will knew all of the information and more to be registered to vote and they disqualified him on a technicality. The whole time he had to dumb himself down to make the white man feel better about himself. (also notice how the book never mentioned White as a race and lower case the word Black wherever it was spelled).

That speaks to my next point that when Luke (White brutish character who beat Will up) was fighting for his so-called identity/race he didn’t even understand the importance of the vote. All to say the desire to be American was so heavily pursued by those who were seen as other.

Powerful short story that didn’t need to say it all. We understood.

[Stéphanie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Un roman sur la ségrégation aux USA dans les année 50 et sur le combat contre l'oppression. Court, dur, réaliste et bouleversant.

[Vora · Rating 3 out of 5]

Un roman sur la ségrégation aux USA dans les année 50 et sur le combat contre l'oppression. Court, dur, réaliste et bouleversant.