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A review by anitaofplaybooktag
Delicious Foods by James Hannaham
2.0
This book is a tough one to review in an impartial fair way, so I'm going to just put my biases right out there, and people can criticize me about them.
The story opens with a bang. A man, Eddie, is driving a stolen Suburu north, and he has no hands - - just bloody stumps. It's a great opening. Who couldn't wonder about this man and what happened to him?
Eddie turns out to be the son of a woman, Darlene. Darlene unfortunately is a prostitute and crack cocaine user who gets picked up and ferreted away to farm in Louisiana. This farm is under the auspices of Delicious Foods, and essentially treats its workers like indentured servants . . .one step above slaves . . .a very small step.
The story revolves around Eddie and Darlene primarily and is narrated from their points of view, but there is another narrator, Scotty. Scotty is in fact crack cocaine. Yes, crack cocaine is character. This actually works out a little better than it sounds like it would. I will give the author a nod and say it was fresh. The whole plot line is very original so kudos to him on that.
Here's what really bothered me. The author is African American. And I think he was, in part, trying to show the damage from slavery in a modern day setting. Or trying to skewer the whole migrant worker situation. Or attempting to show why people are incapable of extricating themselves from difficult situations.
But frankly, I just felt he portrayed black people in a terrible light. They were weak, easily manipulated, derailed by the least little challenge, addicted to drugs. They are being held as prisoners, and when someone escapes, he doesn't call the police. In fact over and over again, no one contacts the police. I understand that there is a lot of suspicion of the police in the black community, and that was portrayed in the book, but there were heinous crimes going on.
So then, I think to myself, well white people write about other white people and portray them in terrible ways. Why can't an African American author do the same? But I do think if a white author wrote this exact same book, people would say it was racist. When Scotty talks it's in some kind of urban dialect. The whole thing just really turned me off. None of the characters was especially admirable except Darlene's husband (who is a minor player in this whole drama). Darlene gave a bad name to all women, and yet somehow, I think the author felt like he had justified her behaviors. I just couldn't see it. I didn't find her to be sympathetic.
The story itself had some extremely dramatic moments, but it also had a lot of chapters that felt like filler. When Scotty narrated, I just felt very detached from the story. I admired how the author articulated what a drug might say if a drug was a person, but all in all, that didn't really propel the story forward.
So while critics may love this one, I just couldn't. It just showed the worst side of humanity with little to redeem it.
The story opens with a bang. A man, Eddie, is driving a stolen Suburu north, and he has no hands - - just bloody stumps. It's a great opening. Who couldn't wonder about this man and what happened to him?
Eddie turns out to be the son of a woman, Darlene. Darlene unfortunately is a prostitute and crack cocaine user who gets picked up and ferreted away to farm in Louisiana. This farm is under the auspices of Delicious Foods, and essentially treats its workers like indentured servants . . .one step above slaves . . .a very small step.
The story revolves around Eddie and Darlene primarily and is narrated from their points of view, but there is another narrator, Scotty. Scotty is in fact crack cocaine. Yes, crack cocaine is character. This actually works out a little better than it sounds like it would. I will give the author a nod and say it was fresh. The whole plot line is very original so kudos to him on that.
Here's what really bothered me. The author is African American. And I think he was, in part, trying to show the damage from slavery in a modern day setting. Or trying to skewer the whole migrant worker situation. Or attempting to show why people are incapable of extricating themselves from difficult situations.
But frankly, I just felt he portrayed black people in a terrible light. They were weak, easily manipulated, derailed by the least little challenge, addicted to drugs. They are being held as prisoners, and when someone escapes, he doesn't call the police. In fact over and over again, no one contacts the police. I understand that there is a lot of suspicion of the police in the black community, and that was portrayed in the book, but there were heinous crimes going on.
So then, I think to myself, well white people write about other white people and portray them in terrible ways. Why can't an African American author do the same? But I do think if a white author wrote this exact same book, people would say it was racist. When Scotty talks it's in some kind of urban dialect. The whole thing just really turned me off. None of the characters was especially admirable except Darlene's husband (who is a minor player in this whole drama). Darlene gave a bad name to all women, and yet somehow, I think the author felt like he had justified her behaviors. I just couldn't see it. I didn't find her to be sympathetic.
The story itself had some extremely dramatic moments, but it also had a lot of chapters that felt like filler. When Scotty narrated, I just felt very detached from the story. I admired how the author articulated what a drug might say if a drug was a person, but all in all, that didn't really propel the story forward.
So while critics may love this one, I just couldn't. It just showed the worst side of humanity with little to redeem it.