A Novel for Adults (2006)<\/p>\n
A white man and a black woman discover the depth of their differences, and an unexpected bond, in this urban drama.<\/p>\n
Edmund, long-divorced and lonely, offers shelter to Careese, who is temporarily homeless. Good intentions on both sides give way to mutual distrust and resentment \u2014 but what begins as a clash of language and culture turns into something else entirely.<\/p>\n
Told in the two distinct voices of its protagonists, this novel cuts to the bone in dissecting Edmund’s and Careese’s hidden prejudices, faults and strengths. As their attitudes change, their seemingly simple story becomes a complex exploration of America’s unhealed wound.<\/p>\n
\u2022<\/p>\n
DARK & LIGHT is a moving, convincing, and entirely unsentimental story of a love that bridges ethnic and social divides; that succeeds even when \u2014 perhaps even because \u2014 it doesn’t triumph.
\n– John Barth<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\u2026brutally honest about the difficulty of bridging the racial gap and the assumptions that even well-meaning blacks and whites make about one another.
\n– Library Journal<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\nExcerpt:<\/strong><\/h4>\n
Over dinner on Wednesday, Careese mentioned that this would have been her father\u2019s fifty-second birthday. All day long, she said, she\u2019d been thinking about the nights when they used to play cards and pass a bag of potato chips back and forth. She was hoping Edmund might play Crazy Eights with her after supper, in her father\u2019s honor. She\u2019d even bought a bag of potato chips.<\/p>\n
Edmund considered card-playing the most useless waste of time imaginable, and had gone more than twenty years without opening the deck in the kitchen drawer. After what Careese had said, though, he couldn\u2019t refuse\u2026<\/p>\n
\u201cHow long ago did your father pass away?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cGoing on two years. Two years December twelfth.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt must have been hard for you.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tears collected in her eyes. The ease with which she contacted her grief awed him.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat was the worst time in my life. Everything else that was bad, at least it was still life. But when he passed, it was final. I couldn\u2019t accept it, that I wouldn\u2019t ever see him again.\u201d<\/p>\n
She wiped away the tears, and played the Jack of clubs. He put down a three of clubs to match the suit.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou must have loved him a lot.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe had a closeness that nobody couldn\u2019t touch. When I got sick with the strep, he cooked soup for me, made sure I was warm enough. He brought the TV into the room so I could watch my cartoons. Just sitting on the couch together was fun for us\u2014we used to watch wrestling at night, and I would always say it was phony, and he\u2019d say, \u2018No it\u2019s not!\u2019 Cause it\u2019s a skill, they have to go to school and learn how to flip each other without getting hurt.\u201d<\/p>\n
Her love reminded him of its opposite, Kristen\u2019s bristling, contorted anger. The contrast hit him like a bat in the face.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe came from the street, he wasn\u2019t fancy like Mom. But he weren\u2019t rough. He had a comfortable, relaxed way. Everybody liked to be around him\u2026 But I\u2019ll tell you what he liked better than anything. Fishing. That\u2019s some of my best memories.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHe took you with him?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYeah, he took us upstate sometimes, to a lake, and rented us a rowboat. That was his peace on earth.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat kinds of fish did you catch?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cFrom the lake, I don\u2019t remember. When we fished the Hudson River it was striped bass, white perch. And eels\u2014that was gross. My little brother used to whine and complain when it came time to clean the fish.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve never cleaned a fish in my life. I wouldn\u2019t know how.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not that hard. You just take the knife and rub the scales off, go the opposite way of the scales. They pop all over. Then you slice the fish down the belly side\u2014don\u2019t cut it all the way in half, just open it like you do a hot dog bun. Then you clean the insides out. And then you cut the head off, and you wash it.\u201d<\/p>\n
As she talked, he eased into a pleasant, trancelike state, as if he were a small child and she were reading him a bedtime story. He felt a pang of disappointment when she stopped.<\/p>\n
Comments:<\/strong><\/h4>\n
During the 1990s, I worked at The Fortune Society, a nonprofit that helps people who have just gotten out of prison. There I met people unlike any I had ever known: people who had grown up in the toughest neighborhoods of the city, committed felonies, served time, and done everything they could to change their lives. At first I was stunned by how rough these people were; over time, I came to admire and love many of them. Edmund\u2019s changes of attitude in Dark & Light parallel my own at The Fortune Society.<\/p>\n
In the course of my employment at Fortune (where I wrote grant proposals and annual reports), I interviewed many of my co-workers about their lives. I transcribed these interviews with painstaking care, to preserve a record of their voices on paper. Careese\u2019s voice is closely based on some of these transcripts.<\/p>\n
While working on this book, I worried that I would fail to do justice to her voice; that, by focusing on Careese\u2019s problems, I would be accused of racism. Early on, I tried to recruit a black woman as a co-author, but that effort failed, and so I was left on my own, to endlessly revise and try to get the voice right–as the old joke about the sculptor goes, chipping away at everything that didn\u2019t look like the subject.<\/p>\n
Aren\u2019t people all the same under the skin? Does it hurt or help to probe the points of difference and hostility between them? My feeling is, you can\u2019t really accept people until you become deeply familiar with them, and that means recognizing the differences and working through the fact that the differences can be irritating.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A white man and a black woman discover the depth of their differences and an unexpected bond in this urban drama.<\/p>\n
\u201c\u2026brutally honest about the difficulty of bridging the racial gap and the assumptions that even well-meaning blacks and whites make about one another.\u201d\u2014 Library Journal
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