In Kevin Baker's latest historical fiction, a young Malcolm X and a disillusioned preacher struggle in 1943 Harlem.
By CONNOR ENNIS
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Historical fiction is a tricky business.
Often, writers choose the genre as a way to show off their knowledge of a specific period, eschewing the necessary foundations of character and plot for what amounts to a laundry list of minutiae about that era.
Thankfully, there are writers such as Kevin Baker. His novel "Strivers Row" brings the Harlem of 1943 to vivid life while keeping readers interested in the story unfolding before the historical backdrop of World War II-era New York.
"Strivers Row" is the final book in Baker's "City of Fire" trilogy. The first, "Dreamland," focused on the sideshows of Coney Island in 1910, while "Paradise Alley" was a rendering of the infamous draft riots of the 1860s.
As in those two books, historical figures populate "Strivers Row," the most recognizable being a young Malcolm X. What makes this book superior to its predecessors -- both strong novels in their own right -- is how Baker makes his characters, real and imaginary, come alive on the pages.
Harlem-bound
Malcolm Little and the Rev. Jonah Dove meet on a New York-bound train. Little is working, "Tomming it up" as he walks through the cars selling refreshments. Dove and his wife Amanda are on their way to their Harlem home after spending time at the summer home of the charismatic and ambitious Adam Clayton Powell. Dove, so light-skinned he could pass for white, and Amanda are being harassed by several white military men during the ride when Malcolm comes to the couple's aid, fighting off the men and eventually having them tossed off the train.
Once the train reaches New York, however, the Doves head for their brownstone in the well-to-do Harlem area of Strivers Row, while Little disappears into the swirl of Harlem's nightlife looking for excitement and experience.
While Baker makes this book essentially about the struggles of two men trying to find their identities and attempting to come to grips with the harshness and bigotry in the world around them, his knowledge of the period allows him to develop a fascinating mosaic behind his main characters.
We are introduced to such places as The Savoy, the Harlem nightclub where the dance floor can often seem like a battlefield; and Cafe Society in Greenwich Village, where the smooth sounds of jazz attract a diverse clientele.
And we are taken into the city's churches, where preaching can sometimes be as much about performance as about belief. Then there are the Collyer brothers, spectral figures from the city's history whose uptown brownstone eventually became their garbage-laden tomb.
Little's world soon becomes one of rent parties, numbers running, drug deals and after-hours clubs. He is always just one score away, he thinks, from having enough money to seduce Miranda, a mysterious white singer, away from West Indian Archie, a Harlem hustler who has been Little's mentor.
Looking for answers
But, while Little struggles to get ahead as a hustler, he begins to have visions of a man named Elijah Muhammad, visions that slowly awaken his thoughts and make him begin to question where his life is headed.
While Little is on the verge of his religious conversion -- one that will have a lasting effect on America -- Dove is in the midst of a religious crisis. He has long stopped preaching to his congregation, allowing guests to give the sermons at Sunday services. He has become emotionally shut off from Amanda and he struggles with how he can make his way as a black man in a world that so clearly favors being white.
The answer, he believes, is to leave everything behind and rejoin society as a white man, much like his sister did.
As both Dove and Little struggle with their inner demons, the city around them boils with discontent. The people of Harlem are fed up with being treated like second-class citizens, picked on by the police, taken advantage of by crooked landlords and demeaned by their bosses at menial jobs.
While Dove and Little head full-bore toward another fateful meeting, the people of Harlem begin to rise. It will be a moment that will forever change the lives of many, including Dove and the soon-to-be Malcolm X.
With stunning historical sweep and powerfully engaging prose, Baker makes sense of a wild period in the city's history, one that seems long-forgotten but gave off seismic reverberations that can still be felt today.