The Beautiful Struggle by Ta — Nehisi Coates. Book review 27 February 2021.

Choosing a book out of your comfort zone or reading library can be hard yet exhilarating. The ones sitting on the library at home do not always speak out to me and the ones I read may be ones I need a break from. The other day editor Kelly Notaras posted a video with a book recommendation and I thought this is something I’d love to read now and a book that I would not necessarily have picked had I not known about it. It jumped out at me because it was a novel yet a memoir, or a memoir written as a novel. And people’s stories are always interesting, no matter who they are.

It took a day to read The Beautiful Struggle. Ta — Nehisi Coates picks each word with care. He masters the story, the word and the pace throughout. I could smell the fears painted on the school corridor walls, the bus stop, the park and I could feel the atmosphere in the Baltimore streets flashing by as I read. Although I’ve never been, I think of the band Baltimore (Baltimora) with “Tarzan Boy” and Nina Simone’s “Baltimore.” But this memoir shows us a Baltimore no fiction could depict better, encompassing the peace in the struggle at the same time. By writing with the poetic flair of the rhythm of ocean waves, using slang interweaved into the narrative the author creates a page-turner of the events that shaped him into the writer and man he is. The N word coming and going like there’s nobody’s business coincides with no go areas of Baltimore. This is not only a portrait of the struggle. Ta — Nehisi Coates’…