Like his award-winning debut BLACKTOP WASTELAND, Cosby’s new novel is gritty and raw and ambitious in its themes. There are two main characters, both ex-cons—a white father named Buddy Lee and a Black father named Ike—whose sons Derek and Isiah fell in love and were married and raising a daughter when they were brutally murdered. The fathers had rejected their sons’ sexuality and marriage before the young men died; but now, belatedly, the two men resolve to “set it right” by discovering why the young men were murdered and taking their revenge. Although the book contains plenty of curses, and guns and blood appear frequently, the profanity and violence are neither gratuitous nor superfluous. These men live in a brutal world (present-day, in a small town in Virginia), where the power is held by some truly unredeemable men, characterized by ignorance, fear, and rage. As the fathers’ regret for their irreparable mistakes nearly breaks them, Buddy Lee and Ike each find some redemption in the acceptance they find for each other and their differences, which go far beyond skin color into the domain of lived experiences and fundamental assumptions. Ike schools Buddy Lee regularly about the injustice he faces as a Black man, and at times I felt Buddy Lee was a stand-in for the insensitive white reader. But far more often, I felt the authenticity of Ike’s pain—the gross injustices as well as the mundane, grinding ways that Black people are treated with less decency and consideration than white people.
At times, reading Cosby’s book, I found myself thinking of Brit Bennett’s VANISHING HALF because that book (also very good) grapples with similar questions: Why do we fear difference, and how do we transcend that fear? What does it mean to accept someone who is very different from ourselves, by virtue of their skin color, sexual orientation, or gender identity? (Like VANISHING HALF, RAZORBLADE TEARS features a transgender young adult.) Cosby’s novel adds another question, a poignant one: What can we do when we come to acceptance too late, and how can we make amends?
As a novelist, I keep my eye out for moments when the language conveys profound feeling, a raw experience that pulls the reader into the minds and hearts of the characters. Cosby is good at this; the moments come frequently. I also scribble in the margin at places where the language sings. In his writing, Cosby slips smoothly from forthright description into language that feels lyrical and even poetic: “The air had a stale, spoiled scent. A thin layer of dust covered most of the exposed surfaces. Death had laid his cold hand on this place and stilled its heart.” He turns nouns into verbs, and vice versa, making the language fresh: “His truck shuddered as the engine dieseled for a few seconds.” And he paces the book well, with the conflict becoming more and more desperate—until the final, terrifying showdown.
A powerful, well-written page-turner with compelling and troubled protagonists, this book will please fans of Lou Berney and Tana French.
As a novelist, I keep my eye out for moments when the language conveys profound feeling, a raw experience that pulls the reader into the minds and hearts of the characters. Cosby is good at this; the moments come frequently. I also scribble in the margin at places where the language sings. In his writing, Cosby slips smoothly from forthright description into language that feels lyrical and even poetic: “The air had a stale, spoiled scent. A thin layer of dust covered most of the exposed surfaces. Death had laid his cold hand on this place and stilled its heart.” He turns nouns into verbs, and vice versa, making the language fresh: “His truck shuddered as the engine dieseled for a few seconds.” And he paces the book well, with the conflict becoming more and more desperate—until the final, terrifying showdown.
A powerful, well-written page-turner with compelling and troubled protagonists, this book will please fans of Lou Berney and Tana French.
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