“I would not have you descend into your own dream. I would have you be a conscious citizen of this terrible and beautiful world.”

– Ta-Nehisi Coates

There are books that change the way you read. Jane Eyre opened me up to Victorian-era classics. All Creatures Great and Small and The Tipping Point broke me out of my habit of exclusively reading fiction. Ursula K. LeGuin’s Earthsea and Hanish Cycle made me realize fantasy and sci-fi books are perfectly suited to contemporary societal critique. I didn’t go into Between the World and Me expecting to have my way of reading changed again but here I am, completely blown away.

I think college ruined my desire to read collections of essays. I read a lot, very few ever speaking to me, and never imagined I’d seek out more once I’d graduated. Picking up Ta-Nehisi Coates’ Between the World and Me broke a cycle of avoidance and, lucky for me, turned my entire opinion of the style on its head. Thank goodness for giving old formats a second chance. 

Between the World and Me is a collection of three essays, all framed as a larger letter to Coates’ fifteen-year-old son in the wake of the Ferguson Protests of 2014. Coates intersperses his personal experiences of racism with historical context, sociological theory, and the works of other prominent black authors. Throughout the book, his word choice is precise; before I arrived at the section where he mentions his time in college, I had a feeling that Coates had written poetry before. There is no word out of place, no fillers to add length. Every sentence is dense with intention and emotion, allowing him to write for his son the way only a parent can: openly, honestly, and with very little held back. 

One of the choices Coates makes is to avoid the words “kill”, “die”, or variations thereof. Instead, he uses terms like “the destruction of the body” or “the loss of the body.” As Coates is an atheist, the body is the only thing that matters- it’s where his soul is, his life. After that, for him, is nothing. Any harm done to his body jeopardizes his existence. It makes the physical person the receptacle of systemic injustice. Facts, figures, and condemnations of institutions or societal norms are incorporeal- the body which must bear these facts and figures is not. The use of “the body” is, frankly, one of the most important aspects in the book for recognizing the individual toll of injustice. 

Like everything discussed thus far, the framing device (the letter to his son) is also intentional. James Baldwin, a prolific black author and philosopher from the Civil Rights era, published a letter to his fifteen-year-old nephew in 1962 called “My Dungeon Shook.” The reference is clear: both talk to their young family members as they begin to realize that the people around them and the country they live in have set them up to fail. Both Baldwin and Coates are honest about the generational trauma the children will inherit and the fundamental danger of being black in America. Where the two letters diverge is how the two authors recommend navigating through adulthood. Baldwin, a major influence during the Civil Rights movement, calls for his nephew to change the minds of those who benefit from the system (the people who Coates calls Dreamers) to enact justice. Coates, on the other hand, tells his son not to struggle against these systems, that Dreamers must learn and grow themselves. He offers no solutions and no real comfort. 

The difference between the two is stark and appears to be a sticking point for some reviewers I’ve read. Coates is much more pessimistic, asking questions but leaving us without answers. We’ve become so used to calls-to-action in essays or non-fiction that, when left with none, it leaves us uncomfortable. Coates poses questions and then leaves us with one last vignette: the death of Prince Carmen Jones Jr. Some readers find that frustrating, like the book has no real resolution. 

I have to wonder about that criticism. If Coates had, in the end, told his son to do X, start Y, and dream of Z, would it have rung true? Or would something inspirational have fallen flat next to the rest of the work? I don’t think the point was ever to give answers on how to combat racism. It’d be like asking a soldier how to end a war. Why is it Coates’ responsibility to tell us how to make just an unjust society? 

The other criticism I see (and had myself, until I thought about it more) is that Coates only scratches the surface of intersectionality. Black women are mentioned, and their struggles noted, but not talked about in-depth. Class is only mentioned a few times and highlighted once when speaking about the murder of Prince Carmen Jones Jr., as his wealth did not erase the target on his back. I think these criticisms, as well as the criticism that Coates does not give a resolution to the subjects he discusses, miss the point of the work. While Coates may frequently dive into history or the framework of systemic racism, this is inherently a personal narrative. He is talking specifically about his experiences to his son, who, being of the same gender, has the potential to experience everything his dad did very similarly. If Coates was to turn this collection of personal essays on race into a textbook for every subject and every intersection, it wouldn’t be what it is. The point would be lost in the footnotes. 

Between the World and Me was not written to educate white people on the effects and experiences of racism. It was written, much like Baldwin’s letter, to speak to the experience of a black man in America trying to talk to a child about what’s in store. Clearly, it does put racism into context for people who don’t live under its shadow or it wouldn’t have been a New York Times Bestseller for a record-breaking hundred weeks. That doesn’t mean we should ask it to be something it was never intended to be.

I’d recommend this book to everyone. The language is superb and the content is eye-opening in ways I hadn’t even imagined. Ta-Nehisi Coates is a wonderful writer and I hope everyone has a chance to read any of his work, whether it be this book, his articles in The Atlantic, or his other novels. I have a feeling he’s convinced me to read more collections of essays- I’ll just need to find the right ones!

Stay tuned for next week when I unveil our next (and very different) book of the month. Until then, happy reading!

If you'd like to read Baldwin's "My Dungeon Shook" you can check it out here.