Hell of a Book: A Novel
What even is Hell of a Book besides a 2021 National Book Award finalist? It’s singular. “Singular” meaning both “exceptionally good or great, remarkable”; and “strange or eccentric in some respect.”
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Community Reviews
What’s it about?
In this story we follow a writer as he tours the country promoting his book. It is a “hell of a book” but he can’t seem to remember exactly what it is about. His mind struggles with what is real and what is imagined. In the background, the story of young Black boy being shot and killed by the police seems to always keep popping up. We are taken along on this book tour and are witnesses as the author struggles with love, relationships, reality, and what being Black in America means to him.
What did it make me think about?
So much!
Should I read it?
Well, I have a profound admiration for Jason Mott. This is a hell of a book. Having said that- this book is probably not for everyone. It is a story to be admired, pondered, and discussed. If you are looking for something light I would not look here. However, if you choose to pick this one up you will undoubtably be moved. This book goes on a short list of stories that I may have admired more than loved.
Quote-
“He was a man who had been afraid of the eyes of others for all of his life. How could he not want his child to learn the impossible trick of invisibility?”
In this story we follow a writer as he tours the country promoting his book. It is a “hell of a book” but he can’t seem to remember exactly what it is about. His mind struggles with what is real and what is imagined. In the background, the story of young Black boy being shot and killed by the police seems to always keep popping up. We are taken along on this book tour and are witnesses as the author struggles with love, relationships, reality, and what being Black in America means to him.
What did it make me think about?
So much!
Should I read it?
Well, I have a profound admiration for Jason Mott. This is a hell of a book. Having said that- this book is probably not for everyone. It is a story to be admired, pondered, and discussed. If you are looking for something light I would not look here. However, if you choose to pick this one up you will undoubtably be moved. This book goes on a short list of stories that I may have admired more than loved.
Quote-
“He was a man who had been afraid of the eyes of others for all of his life. How could he not want his child to learn the impossible trick of invisibility?”
Very Meta and recursive in style. A smart, self aware experience merging dream/hallucination characters with a life running off the tracks. A journey centered on being black in America, and on being bookish while being black, on racial violence, on how internal monologues can justify anything.
It's not often that I think a book is so important that I write in it, highlighting the best quotes. Read it.
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