Tope Folarin<\/a><\/strong> has created a captivating mosaic of identity fractured by the clash of warm immigrant expectation with icy new-world reality. The prose is carefully crafted and for the reader, seamlessly visual. Metaphors and subtle descriptors, plus deft, freighted dialogue make this an easily habitable read. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n
The title allusion to particularity is key to the turbulent, often capricious negotiation of immigrant \u201cself\u201d examined from multiple angles: Tunde, his mother, his father and ultimately, the kaleidoscope of peer groups the young man works through as he grows up, as they too must fit him into their world and not always in the way he\u2019d like.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n
Though his parents arrived in America with preconceived notions to sustain them, the challenges of otherness are simply dumped on Tunde in real-time. His father chooses the literal insistence, settling where no other family member has gone, and doing so in the Hollywood cowboy-movie mien, though his pre-bought cowboy hat remains hidden under the bed. Ultimately, his mother gives up, abandons the family and returns to Nigeria, while his father forges stubbornly ahead. That leaves Tunde to navigate the loss and, often, the wreckage, mostly solo. He must decode a new language and culture and find\u2014and face\u2014his place.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n
The results are poignant, often sad, but mostly a stoic mix. When Tunde\u2019s father encounters Mrs. Reynolds, who\u2019s come to take Tunde to an NAACP meeting, African language clashes with a Black American perception of native African culture: \u201cAll your books are false!\u201d Tunde\u2019s father thunders at her, which is a telling revelation that flies over his own head, or at least his acknowledgment: his own mythological expectations of life in America are equally based on false perceptions. Yet those he obstinately never gives up.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n
Tunde\u2019s solitary lifeline between Africa and America, old and new world, is an ephemeral, almost spiritual conversation with his grandmother back on the old continent. The dialogue is iconic: a fingertip touch with a world lost, the conscience of the past inadequate\u2014yet still comforting\u2014in the frontier of a new culture in which Tunde must resolve an identity and a place for himself. In a unique way, this dialogue inscribes Tunde\u2019s very real \u201cmiddle passage.\u201d<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n
Just past midway in the story, Folarin takes the reader on an aesthetic excursion best described as beautiful in an innovative way or, in the symbolically reflective dynamic emblematic of his prose, innovative in a touching way: true love won or lost. It is breathtaking.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n
Upon reflection, the power of this story is put into relief by Folarin\u2019s creative refusal to stay within the lines of narrative convention and fly away like Tunde\u2019s heart upon difficulties with Noelle: like Tunde, the author transcends typical boundaries and plays it larger than life. The results are stunning, rewarding, and for the reader, eye-opening. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n
\u201cBreak a vase,\u201d says Nobel Laureate Derek Walcott, \u201cand the love that reassembles the fragments is stronger than that love which took its symmetry for granted when it was whole.\u201d In the end, Folarin reassembles t<\/span><\/span>he fractured pieces of Tunde\u2019s world to forge a new beginning. Though Tunde dreams of the old days with his mother when she dragged him around a foreign land as a child, he can\u2019t recall ever feeling really safe. She is still unreachable, but now it\u2019s different: he will bring them safely \u201cback home.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n
The reader is left to contemplate the possible facets of Folarin\u2019s well-crafted narrative vision and the multiple, layered potential of the term \u201chome.\u201d The possibilities are endless and, in the afterglow of the story, beautiful.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Chirs Manno reviews Tope Folarin’s A Particular Kind of Black Man<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2208,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[216,113,55,9,12,8],"class_list":["post-2209","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-bookreview","tag-immigration","tag-literaryfiction","tag-lonestarliterarylife","tag-lonestarreview","tag-lonestarliterarycom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2209","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2209"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2209\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2208"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2209"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2209"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2209"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}