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Contemporary Fiction Views: A son struggles to answer the question, 'What are you?' [1]

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Date: 2022-09-13  

Andrew aftermath, Tampa Bay Times

Some of the most endearing and significant aspects of reading fiction are the connections and insights awaiting to be found. Whether it's recognizing an emotion or situation in common, or those flashing moments that show a new way to look at the world, to enter into the world of a book and its characters whether through a mirror, window or sliding glass door, the rewards can be illuminating and exhilarating.

Rewards abound in the new book If I Survive You. Jonathan Escoffery's debut collection of connected stories. Through the different tales and perspectives of a family, Escoffery delves into fathers and sons, the immigrant experience and conflicted love of the country left behind, race and gender.

In the opening story, Trelawny, the second son of Jamaican immigrants, he grows up not knowing the answer to the question "What are you?" Whether it's fellow school children or their families who aren't sure if he's Black or brown, a father who doesn't understand his son who is in love with words and learning, Trelawny has no idea who or what he is supposed to be.

One thing he does know is that his father prefers his first son, Delano. When the family splits up, Trelawny is left with his mother while the other two go back to their hurricane-destroyed Miami home to rebuild. That his mother eventually goes back to Jamaica on her own adds to the young man's sense of not knowing where he belongs. Hurricane Andrew not only affects the family’s home, its destruction is symbolic of the damage done between the generations.

Their cousin's father abandoned him when he was born, but comes back into his life as Cukie becomes a teenager and then a young man. When Cukie sees history repeating itself and tries to reverse course, the outcome is far from good.

The complications between the generations are even more marked because of the immigration factor. As Escoffery said in an interview with the New York Times,

It’s this odd kind of unwinnable dynamic, where they want you to have pride in your Jamaican heritage, but they also want to be the ones who are safeguarding Jamaican heritage from you.”

That dynamic leads to a big act of revenge on a son's part, one that helps set the course toward his destiny.

Although Escoffery uses his knowledge to create these intense, utterly believable characters, they are not him and his family. To read the work of a writer who is able to take parts of what he knows and combine it with what he imagines is to open the possibility of getting to know someone else's world. When there are moments of connection, such as knowing just how a child feels about both parents, the joy of discovering that writer is all the greater.

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[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2022/9/13/2122240/-Contemporary-Fiction-Views-A-son-struggles-to-answer-the-question-What-are-you

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