The Emancipation of Evan Walls, by Jeffrey Blount
An enthralling story. Evan Walls is a nerdy young black boy in a deeply segregated town in the South. Well written scenes of his family life and Evan's dramatic estrangement from his harsh father and submissive mother, who want an ordinary black boy as their son. Evan's ostracism from his family and the black community (except for a few heroes) because of his commitment to his intellectual pursuits and habits (he's accused of being too white, abandoning his black heritage and brothers) is painful to read. And it reads true to some of my own memories of young black children I knew growing up. The book is a page turner. However, about three quarters of the way through, the story gets a little strange for me, when Evan is revealed to be a tremendous athlete who, even when he wins football games for his high school, is still hated and persecuted by black teammates and townspeople. There's an odd disconnect here. The hatred from fellow blacks is unending, and I just don't sense that's right or true anymore. Also, like a number of other readers, I took the book to be an actual memoir, but it's not. It's a novel in the form of a memoir. The book cover doesn't identify it as a novel.
