I will try to describe this book, but it is a very difficult book to describe. If you like, you can skip what I have to say, and refer back to the 4 stars I have given it--with the understanding that I refuse to give 5 stars to anything on principal. This book gets close, however. Ace of Spades is a memoir about the David Matthews' experiences as a "mixed" (white looking) boy and young man in the depressed black neighborhoods of Baltimore. The story is about how he fakes a "Jewish" identity, rather than live as a black boy... an identity he views as the lowest rung on the social totem pole in 1980's America.
This book is in fact about an America many people will recognize since the end of the viet nam war, until right now in our nation's history. Matthews' personal story seems to weave in and out of major historical events and turning points in our culture; and he deftly manages to loop major world events right back into his solitary journey. Malcolm X, Fidel Castro, The Six Day War--these people and places telescope into Matthews' injured, wry tale of abandonment. The author never met his real life Jewish mother, so his "Jewish" identity-grab is a painful (and painfully funny) act of self-sabotage and cultural betrayal, that reminded me of the character Coleman Silk in "The Human Stain" by Philip Roth. I had to remind myself that these excruciating (it's like watching a car wreck in slow-motion) situations were someone's life, and I felt the necessity of his choices at every turn. The world he describes, even if he imagines it, seems like a very scary and confining place.
I never forgive him for his actions--for example burning a cross(even this scene he wrings a laugh from)--but I understand them.
His writing style is long and languid, or short and punchy. Sometimes it's lyrical, and sometimes it punches you in the gut. It is refreshing to read someone with a style that speaks to a mastery of the English language, rather than a mastery of being stylish for the sake of it. Buy a good dictionary. You will need one.
This book is so difficult to categorize... It is foremost simply a wonderful/terrible tale of growing up, not so different from Jean Shepherd, or even Augusten Burroughs or Frank McCourt. There are moments of biting social observation, a few of which I could do without, but most of which were either humorous or insightful, usually both.
There are quirky footnotes, which take getting used to, but they are so related to the themes being explored, you almost begin to miss them when too many pages go by without them--and in fact start looking for them, kind of like a prize in a box of cereal.
There's even a jarring transition into a scene written in movie format---and it gives a real immediacy and cinematic quality to the chapter, almost like floating between a book and a movie. Some people may find it gimmicky, but by the time it appears in the book, there's been well-earned flourishes, so even if I can tell he's reaching, it seems like he's reaching for something larger than his own small, scary, story.
There is a brutal and beautiful honesty to this book, and I would be lying if I said that parts of it were not ugly. The author seems to spare nothing in his search for self. There is no fault he will not expose to the light of day, gambling (and winning in my case) on the fact that when any redemtion comes he will have earned it and overcome a lot to get there. I have no expertise in racial matters, this book was left on my nightstand by my fiance and I picked it up. There maybe people of mixed-race backgrounds who feel more deeply some of the things Matthews talks about/lives through, but this book is actually about pain, loss, motherhood, fatherhood, sexual immaturity, sexual maturity, and black and white and Jewish identities in America. I like books that aim high even if they sometimes miss, and yes this book sometimes misses. But when he scores, it is dead center bullseye. Highly, highly recommended.
