The Beautiful Struggle: A Father, Two Sons, and an Unlikely Road to Manhood [Hardcover]

Ta-Nehisi Coates (Author)

Book Description

Release date: May 6, 2008

An exceptional father-son story about the reality that tests us, the myths that sustain us, and the love that saves us.

Paul Coates was an enigmatic god to his sons: a Vietnam vet who rolled with the Black Panthers, an old-school disciplinarian and new-age believer in free love, an autodidact who launched a publishing company in his basement dedicated to telling the true history of African civilization. Most of all, he was a wily tactician whose mission was to carry his sons across the shoals of inner-city adolescence—and through the collapsing civilization of Baltimore in the Age of Crack—and into the safe arms of Howard University, where he worked so his children could attend for free.

Among his brood of seven, his main challenges were Ta-Nehisi, spacey and sensitive and almost comically miscalibrated for his environment, and Big Bill, charismatic and all-too-ready for the challenges of the streets. The Beautiful Struggle follows their divergent paths through this turbulent period, and their father’s steadfast efforts—assisted by mothers, teachers, and a body of myths, histories, and rituals conjured from the past to meet the needs of a troubled present—to keep them whole in a world that seemed bent on their destruction.

With a remarkable ability to reimagine both the lost world of his father’s generation and the terrors and wonders of his own youth, Coates offers readers a small and beautiful epic about boys trying to become men in black America and beyond.

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

*Starred Review* Coates grew up in a tough Baltimore neighborhood, subject to the same temptations as other young black boys. But he had a father in the household, a man steeped in race consciousness and willing to go to any lengths—including beatings—to keep his sons on the right path. With sharp cultural observations and emotional depth, Coates recalls an adolescence of surreptitiously standing on corners eying girls, drinking fifths, and earning reps, mindful of his father’s admonition about the Knowledge. Central to the Knowledge was the need to confront fears and bullies and beat them in order to live in peace. For a while, his own style was to “talk and duck”; later he found places to be himself in African drumming and writing. The Knowledge focused on alternative paths for race-conscious black men, respectful of the broader culture, but always a bit on the margins. His father had balanced his own life between square jobs and a black book publishing enterprise. As Coates grew up, he replaced his comic books with his father’s collection of classic literature on the race struggle and found his own way. A beautifully written, loving portrait of a strong father bringing his sons to manhood. --Vanessa Bush

Review

Praise for The Beautiful Struggle

 “I grew up in a Maryland that lay years, miles and worlds away from the one whose summers and sorrows Ta-Nehisi Coates evokes in this memoir with such tenderness and science; and the greatest proof of the power of this work is the way that, reading it, I felt that time, distance and barriers of race and class meant nothing. That in telling his story he was telling my own story, for me.”
-- Michael Chabon, bestselling author of The Yiddish Policemen’s Union and The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay

"Ta-Nehisi Coates is the young James Joyce of the hip hop generation." -- Walter Mosley

“Ta-Nehisi Coates's The Beautiful Struggle is a compelling story told in a musical voice about the author’s father, a proud black man and revolutionary, struggling to raise his family in the ashes of the revolution.  A timely story of family, tough love, and courage.”  
— Flores Forbes, author of Will You Die With Me?: My Life and the Black Panther Party

“A beautiful journey.  A voice rich in detail, Coates is lyrical and clever. As he navigates through a slice of urban American, we root for him as he fumbles and finds purpose. This debut establishes Coates are one of the most luminous storytellers of his generation.”
— Natalie Y. Moore, author Deconstructing Tyrone: A New Look at Black Masculinity in the Hip-Hop Generation

"A beautiful story of manhood from a beautiful American city, where emotions fall as hard as rain and can prove to be just as cleansing. But the most remarkable thing in The Beautiful Struggle is the voice of Ta-Nehisi Coates, which lingers in the ear. A find you're not likely to forget." 
                                                                        –Neely Tucker, author of Love in the Driest Season

 “With humor, grace, and an impressive reserve of compassion, Ta-Nehisi Coates has crafted a great gift of a book.  The Beautiful Struggle should be required reading for black boys — and those who are raising one.” 

--William Jelani Cobb, author of The Devil and Dave Chappelle

“[A] compact, young-voiced, old-souled book…its voice is prophetic.”

--Rick Simonson, Elliott Bay Book Company

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 240 pages
• Publisher: Spiegel & Grau; First Edition edition (May 6, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0385520360
• ISBN-13: 978-0385520362
• Product Dimensions: 5.8 x 0.9 x 8.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (24 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #156,594 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

35 of 38 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars A Must Read for Baltimoreans. June 7, 2008

By Stacia L. Brown

Format:Hardcover

I've never read a memoir quite like this one. Ta-Nehisi talks about his parents' patented "look of Not Playing" and calls the bullies from rival neighborhoods "orcs," immediately evoking faceless, hooded menaces, as chilling on the page as they likely were as he tried to outrun them, growing up. He calls Howard University "Mecca." Street smarts are The Knowledge. Tribal rites of passage you usually only read about in books on African History or see on documentaries take place on the streets DC and Northern Virginia.

The Beautiful Struggle is like an urban Pilgrim's Progress, a hip-hop infused allegory about how to survive Baltimorean boyhood, about how to overcome academic mediocrity, about how to stop acting as your own eclipse and finding some way--any way--to shine.

It feels nonlinear and random at turns, but even at its most tangential, it holds your attention and nearly every page contains a sentence so lush or confessional you can't help but envy its construction.

Dude's the real deal. Read it.

24 of 26 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Father Knows Best June 4, 2008

By Priscilla C. Johnson VINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

Ta-Nehisi Coates introduces readers to a new and intriguing coming-of-age story, The Beautiful Struggle: A Father, Two Sons and An Unlikely Road to Manhood that takes place in Baltimore during the height of the Hip-Hop and Drug era. Paul Coates was a Vietnam Veteran who returned to the chaotic streets of Baltimore and became a leader in the city's Black Panther Party. Armed with determination, Paul Coates was a disciplinarian that strived for success and knowledge. Ta-Nehisi discusses his father's emphasis on knowledge and understanding your history in order to succeed. Ta-Nehisi admits to struggling in school as he attempted to find his way; yet he maintained the teachings of his father. He also discusses the path chosen by an older brother that teetered on self-destruction and then recovery.

Paul Coates' story is very refreshing. It is not the story of a former Black Panther but of a father's determination to raise his sons. Armed with knowledge, consciousness, common sense and self-worth, Ta-Nehisi Coates tells of his failures and triumphs into man-hood that were guided by his father and aided by his mother and teachers. Though his father was strict, you could feel the love in all of his actions. Ta-Nehisi Coates' writing style is simplistic and engaging. Each page encourages you to continue to the next. Everyone that reads it will appreciate this story but it is especially recommended for young men and those raising young men.

Reviewed by: Priscilla C. Johnson
APOOO BookClub

19 of 21 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars THE BEAUTIFUL STRUGGLE CONTINUES June 16, 2008

By Dawn Ashwood

Format:Hardcover

You know, as one escalates in age, but in particularly, in maturity with a little dose of wisdom and a touch of discernment, you begin to look at your parents as multi dimensional people. You realize, no they were not put on this earth to make your life miserable and without even consciously realizing it, the life lessons they taught you, the pitfalls they tried to keep you from falling into, become your reality. Ta-Nehisi Coates has penned a memoir for the hip hop( the ORIGINAL hip hop) generation. What I appreciated about Mr. Coates recollection of his childhood and coming of age tale was the fact that he didn't try to explain, defend or deny his father. He simply opened the door to the portals of ones mind, so that we can see the trials and triumphs of an american family. I appreciate Mr. Coates forth rightness about his father's inability to me faithful to any one woman, and how that may or may not have affected him. One of the most humorous passages of the book is when the elder Coates has enlisted Ta-Nehisi to go through the labyrinth of books and pamphlets in the garage and he proceeds to write line by line what Ta-Nehisi did or didn't do even down to Ta-Nehisi playing with his younger brother! That was classic! A heart wrenching passage is when the younger Mr. Coates shares with the reader his fathers utter disappointment and advising him of how he has shamed the Coates name. I will never forget, Ta-Nehisi advising the reader that no matter what you have heard about black men/boys, they do not want to fail or be deemed as a failure. This to me is one of the best memoirs for our generation and generations to come. I look forward to hearing more from this man.