Customer Reviews

More Like Wrestling: A Novel

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

MORE LIKE WRESTLING is a debut novel that is stirring and lyrical, and raw and real. Its pages tell a story about all the strife that goes on in the world --alcoholism, abuse, drugs, murder, familial separation-- through the eyes of two sisters whose love for each other is so fierce, they find themselves potentially unable to grow up and out of the pain and inflictions of their pasts.

Oakland, California sets the stage for this powerful novel about Paige and Pinch, who are on shaky and volatile ground as they live with their quiet mother and her increasingly abusive boyfriend. One fateful day, a confrontation between Paige, Pinch and the boyfriend results in their mother renting Paige and Pinch an apartment to live in, alone. This surprising turn of events --moving a 12- and 14-year-old into an apartment to take care of each other, becomes the point of no return for Paige and Pinch as they find themselves meeting new people and making friends whom introduce them into the world of drugs, dealing, drinking, and death.

It is these friends and this new world of unforgiving and ruthless things that begins an unraveling of sorts for Paige and Pinch and their existences. Each will struggle to find her true essence, will try to come to grips with her past and present in order to move on to her future. Will the pair be able to break their dangerously tight love in order to escape the, at times, mean streets of Oakland, to escape their dependency on each other and their painful pasts, so that they can see better days?

Through the voices of Paige and Pinch, Danyel Smith creates a harshly beautiful portrait of real people going through real trials and tribulations. Smith's mosaic, fragmented-like writing style is poetic and lyrical, hard and abrupt, and it cannot help but to lull you into not only the stories of Paige and Pinch, but also the stories of the other characters in the story, whom Smith draws out in concrete details just as poignant and revealing as the two narrators.

I read this novel in virtually one sitting, needing to race back to it every time I put it down for a second. I felt connected to Paige and Pinch, and I felt visually entertained by Smith's lush detail of Oakland and the area. I would highly recommend MORE THAN WRESTLING to readers so they can enjoy it for themselves, and I look forward to reading Smith's future works.

Shon Bacon

In her debut novel, More Like Wrestling, Danyel Smith, former editor at Vibe and Time Magazines, emerges as a new, fresh voice that speaks for the masses.

The time span is 1980s in Oakland during the bloodiest time period of that city's history with drug wars that are being rivaled only by the present time as we go into 2003.
Beautifully crafted in first person voices of two sisters as they evolve from young teens into adulthood, this novel was sobering and poignant, at times melancholy. Paige, the oldest and Pinch, younger by two years are happily living with their mother surrounded by the familiar landmarks of San Antonio Park, Diamond Pool and Lake Merritt as their playgrounds. They are thrust into adulthood at ages fourteen and twelve when their mother's boyfriend, Seth, in a drug-infused rage, physically attacks the sisters. The girls runaway and their mother finds them and rents an apartment that she eventually leaves them in when she returns to her man. Thus the girls are more or less raising themselves among the burgeoning crack drug trade of Oakland. Pinch and Paige are like peanut butter and jelly; you see one, you see the other. Together they travel in a pack with Maynard, their long time childhood friend, Oscar, Jessica, Cedric, LaNelle, and Donnell and assorted acquaintances moving through life in a haze of 80s tunes floating in their young heads.

Pinch clearly has the strongest voice as she wrestles with how she fits in with the crowd, riding on the coattails of Paige. Silent, observant, and all knowing, at times she appears to be not a part of the adventures or misadventures of the crew, but lingering as an afterthought. The boys in this group are a mixture of basically middle-class/working class kids, who though they are college students become swept up by the glamour and allure of the drug-selling scene. Maynard, a manchild, whose parents have substance abuse problems, is forced into a role as provider, protector and eventually marriage and fatherhood. The girls, rarely voicing their fears and concerns to the guys, .... "I don't get into all his business all like that..." preferring to believe it is a temporary condition. In a constant state of denial of what their men are doing, they see only what they want. "Our boys weren't typical vengeful ghetto Negroes.... " Paige, a Cal Berkeley drop-out hooks up with Oscar, who also drops out of college to deal drugs and the two wander aimlessly into marriage. But it is not long before the fast money, flashy cars, and other expensive trappings begin to crowd in on them leading way for inevitable tragedy and life altering events. Lives are changed as friendships are tested and trusts are eroded. These are children growing up too quickly--- wanting to skip the hard part of adulthood and get right to the real living.

This reviewer found it necessary to step away many times in reading this story, some things were too close to what is going on now. The last few years have seen a series of novels showcasing the drug trade activity of Oakland and the thought of reading another rendition was somewhat daunting. But at no time did I think this was for commercial effect or gain. Instead, the raw truth was done tenderly while showing the good and bad of the area as well as the ambiance of a city that sits amidst some of the country's finest institutions of higher learning and culture.
Much of it is written in fragmented and run-together sentences, defying standard rules of English---- but Smith makes it work as she takes us into the heads, minds, and feelings of Paige and Pinch. Metaphors candidly jump off the pages weaving images of an era and place that become visible and remain lingering with readers. Oakland and surrounding areas are brought to life in her lyrical writing. Trying to pigeon hole her style, one sees glimpses of the staccato phrases of Sandra Cisneros, and the lyrical poetry of June Jordan, complex, at times convoluted, but even so this is a unique voice, one that will no doubt becoming classic and timeless to reign with the aforementioned authors.
I applaud the author for stepping out and taking a chance with her voice and thank her for the gift for which she has graced Oakland, her hometown, the Bay Area and the literary world.

Dera Williams
APOOO BookClub

Pinch and Paige are two sisters growing up in Oakland, California. When their mother's boyfriend becomes physically abusive, she opts to stay in the situation, however, she rents the girls their own apartment. The girls, who at the time are ages 12 and 14, find that they have to grow up fast in order to be self-sufficient. Paige takes on the role of guardian, and the two form a bond that is unbreakable.

The girls soon meet friends who love to hang out at their apartment without adult supervision. These friendships continue to grow and flourish, and follow the girls into adulthood. Once the girls become adults, their lives change in ways that they could never have imagined. Their once close-knit clique of friends begin to find themselves drifting apart as some members become involved in the lucrative, albeit dangerous, drug game. Pinch and Paige find themselves questioning everything that they once held sacred including their bond to each other.

Danyel Smith has written a wonderful, engrossing novel. The characters are well developed and have so much history with each other. The story reads smoothly and her use of flashbacks and diary entries helps the reader gain insight into past situations, helps with understanding the characters actions, and provides insight into their psyches. Her vivid descriptions made me feel as though I was in Oakland and that I personally knew all of the characters. I definitely recommend this book and eagerly anticipate future works from this author.

Reviewed by Latoya Carter-Qawiyy

This book is about a lot of things: Oakland in the 80s, young men and women trying to make their way in a harsh world, the fall-out for children of a mother's bad choices. But mostly, it's about sisterhood. Paige and Pinch know each other better than anyone else knows either. And they care for each other as no one else can or will. For both, this relationship is a source of strength, but it is also in part what keeps each sister from venturing into the world. My heart ached as I read this book. But when I turned the last page, it ached with more hope than despair.

I had the pleasure of hearing Danyel Smith read from More Like Wrestling when I was about halfway through it, and reading the last half of this book with that voice in my head made me enjoy it even more than I already was. This voice is unique and strong, conveying a rhythm and feel for her home turf of Oakland that brings you right into every part her world. I look forward to what this talented writer has to offer in the future.

Danyel Smith's debut novel about Paige and Pinch, two sisters coming of age amidst the violent drug culture of Oakland, CA, is the kind of big splash that readers revel in and reviewers live to write about, for here is a book that introduces a unique voice that snaps your head and makes you say, "My God, I have not heard this before. This one is unique." Despite the enervating aspects of the lives Paige and Pinch lead - their mother leaves them to their own apartment when still in their early teens, more than one friend meets an early and unnecessary demise, etc - there is pride in place in this book and a strong core message that the saving graces in a pain-filled world are the love you're smart enough to give and the love you're lucky enough to receive. As such, this book about two bastards out of California belongs on the shelf right alongside the surprise bestsellers of last year - The Lovely Bones and Dive from Clausen's Pier - because not only does it get the grim reality right, but it doesn't forget about the other reality: the light that saves.

Believable characters inhabit Danyel Smith's Oakland

The Oakland of the 1980s -- dubbed "Cokeland" for its all-encompassing drug problem -- casts an imposing shadow across the characters in Danyel Smith's first novel, an on-again, off-again love song to San Francisco's beleaguered next-door neighbor.

And Smith's prose does sing at times, capably distinguishing the voices of the two close-knit African American sisters who serve as alternating narrators. The story follows the sisters, Paige and Pinch, through their first forays into adulthood, a traditional coming-of-age story told nontraditionally. At the novel's outset, the sisters' continued abuse at the hands of their mother's boyfriend sends them to an apartment to live on their own at a dangerously young age.

Pinch, younger than Paige by two years, is observant and quiet. The majority of the novel is made up of her narrative, and her voice is usually pitch-perfect, communicating Smith's journalist's eye for detail (she's a former editor at Time magazine as well as a former editor-in-chief of Vibe) without wavering from Pinch's distinctively inner-city lexicon and phrasings. Paige is brash but harbors a fragility to which only Pinch, at first, is attuned. Friends and, eventually, lovers move casually into and out of their lives, and as the young men in their circle drift inexorably toward drugs, shootings, prison and death, and as the women among them fall in love and bear children, Oakland comes of age as well.

Maynard, a boy from the projects, befriends the girls until the lure of easy money in the drug game pulls him to the sidelines, but it's his story that resonates most deeply with Smith's picture of Oakland and its history -- brief but tumultuous, forgotten but brimming with life. "There's no there there," Gertrude Stein famously said, but in Smith's Oakland, there's too much there there, and the city quakes and groans.

In all fairness, the sociological questions Smith raises never threaten to engulf the characters or the poetry of the language, which sometimes slips into a rhythmic catalog of names and routine actions and then ruminates on the impossible invitations offered by suspension bridges and the harsh bark of sea lions. The dialogue is peppered unselfconsciously with the vernacular of the streets, just enough so that you know where you are -- and who you're with.

Smith's stylistic missteps -- a habit of dragging what should be subtext into the sunlight; of fleshing out metaphors so explicitly that most of their real substance slips away; of force-feeding the reader sentimentality when the events themselves are enough -- can be forgiven thanks to the believability of the characters. There is nary a stereotype in the bunch, and even the supporting players are intricately and intimately drawn.

Particularly as the story winds down, what seems an overly positive tone (considering all the death and hardship the narrators and their remaining circle have experienced) begins to bog things down. It's as if Smith felt there was a note that had to be hit, but these characters, so vivid for so long, deserve more than just a happy ending.

Despite some rough edges, though, Smith's portrait of a little-seen time and place is a welcome first effort. Her characters are so alive and her ear for dialogue so finely tuned that, in the end, no shortcomings can erase the small moments -- the familiar teasing between the two sisters, the favorite fried snapper joint, the bridge stretching across the bay.

What a treat! Danyel Smith has created some of the most interesting and vividly-drawn characters that I can remember reading about - Paige & Pinch - and May & Oscar & others - are going to be with me for a long, long time. Her love and affection for Oakland is palpable, and the descriptions so real that you really do feel as if you're right there with Paige & Pinch & the gang.

I highly recommend this book, and will be anxiously awaiting her next!

Let me just say this book was very very boring I mean this is the first worst coming of age story I ever had to read I didn't get any of it at all it's like I had to force myself to finish this book when I should've just stop reading it was just that boring it was not fast pace it was slow and to think this is this author's first book the first book always suppossed to make a good impression but this one has fail. I know I will not be reading anything from this author again.

I love to read and I was told this was a great book!! It was very cheap and arrived in a timely manner, and the book basically looks brand new. VERY PLEASED!!!