A review by j_m_alexander
The Good Lord Bird by James McBride

adventurous funny reflective medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

 

“The Old Man was a lunatic, but he was a good, kind lunatic, and he couldn’t no more be a sane man in his transactions with his fellow white man than you and I can bark like a dog, for he didn’t speak their language. He was a Bible man. A God man. Crazy as a bedbug. Pure to the truth, which will drive any man off his rocker. But at least he knowed he was crazy. At least he knowed who he was. That’s more than I could say for myself.”

McBride has a way of covering some heavy and interesting topics while still making the reading enjoyable, often humorous, and never quite what you might expect. In this tale of a young slave, Henry Shackleford (aka Onion), is swept off by the legendary abolitionist John Brown (aka The Captain, aka Isaac Smith, aka any number of other names) and it is from this young slaves perspective that we get a whole other portrait of John Brown and his efforts to end the institution of slavery in the United States. To hear the Onion's account of things John Brown was not sane and Onion is a coward who just got tangled up in Brown's schemes, only ever trying to stay alive and in doing ended up posing as a girl, but what we also see is a highly intelligent young person coming of age and pondering some pretty deep thoughts.

“I come to enjoy them talks, for even though I’d gotten used to living a lie—being a girl—it come to me this way: Being a Negro’s a lie, anyway. Nobody sees the real you. Nobody knows who you are inside. You just judged on what you are on the outside whatever your color. Mulatto, colored, black, it don’t matter. You just a Negro to the world.”

“Being a Negro means showing your best face to the white man every day. You know his wants, his needs, and watch him prosper. But he don't know your wants. He don't know your needs or feelings or what's inside you, for you ain't equal to him in no measure. You just a n****r to him. A thing: like a dog or a shovel or a horse. Your needs and wants got no track, whether you is a girl or a boy, a woman or a man, or shy, or fat, or don't eat biscuits, or can't suffer the change of weather easily. What difference do it make? None to him, for you is living on the bottom rail.”

“It occurred to me then that you is everything you are in this life at every moment. And that includes loving somebody. If you can't be your own self, how can you love somebody? How can you be free? That pressed on my heart like a vise right then. Just mashed me down.”

This book will also make one think about how truly difficult it is to significantly change something in our world, mostly because people get used to what they know, but also to risk something for others even when you know it's right is not simple in the moment. I know I am guilty of "showing support" or donating some money to something when what might really be needed is showing up and doing some work on a consistent basis.

“He was just knocked down. I guess we all has our share of them things, when the cotton turns yellow and the boll weevil eats out your crops and you just shook down with disappointment. His great heartbreak was his friend Mr. Douglass. Mine’s was his daughter. There weren’t no way for them things to go but for how God made ’em to go, for everything God made, all His things, all His treasures, all the things heaven sent ain’t meant to be enjoyed in this world. That’s a thing he said, not me, for I weren’t a believer in them times. But a spell come over me that night, watching him eat that bad news. A little bit of a change. For the Captain took that news across the jibs and brung hisself back to Harpers Ferry knowing he was done in."

This is an adventure tale rife with action, symbolism, humor, and complex characters. I guess this is maybe more plot than character, but the voice and characterization strikes an excellent balance and by writing this story centering on a historic figure for whom we more or less know how their story concludes it allows for the what to matter a little less and the characters involved to maybe shine a bit more.