Girl, Pick Up the Phone... We Need to Talk About This Book | A FaceTime Review

[00:00:00][singing] [music] >> Girl, pick up the phone. We need to talk, girl. Are you free?

[00:00:15]Are you doing something?

[00:00:16]No? Okay, good. How you doing, first of all? Good? Good. Girl, it's it's been a day. It's Monday, you know, Monday's cleaning days here in my home. But, while we cleaned, I was reading. What was I reading? I was reading If Beale Street Could Talk by James Baldwin.

[00:00:34]And I need to talk about it with somebody. So, thank you for answering.

[00:00:37]Okay, you're a real one for answering on such a short notice. I usually try not to do this.

[00:00:41]I like to schedule my FaceTime calls, but thank you for answering. I truly appreciate it. Now, girl, you know, not too long ago we read James Baldwin's The Fire Next Time, which is literally two essays, one of which he's writing like directly to his nephew. And we enjoyed that one. I remember us discussing and we enjoyed that one. But, the second essay was a little too non-fiction for me. You know, I don't really dig the non-fiction.

[00:01:10]I just something about it I don't enjoy. Like, I enjoy philosophies and I enjoy like discussing new things and I enjoy ideas and like that's something that I do with my husband all the time. Girl, you know I'm always yapping to him about so many different things. But, something about non-fiction to me is all about the ideas and it takes the human-ness, like the humanity out of it, which makes it like not super personal. It just seems like I'm reading a list of ideas and you know, like drive the point home who is living out these things. Tell me that and I'll be hooked every time.

[00:01:46]After reading If Beale Street Could Talk, I feel like everything literally Why does this do this? Sorry, girl.

[00:01:55]I'm not even going to edit that out cuz we're on FaceTime. This is real.

[00:01:58]Everything that James Baldwin was trying to convey or did convey, you know, in that second essay, I ate it up in If Beale Street Could Talk. And I'm realizing now, you guys know we have been like researching discovering my reading DNA and like what makes me love a book, like what am I drawn to when I'm reading?

[00:02:17]>> [laughter] >> This book solidified so many things and I feel like now every time I'm reading a book, I'm going to be looking for these things. Like does this have it and is that why this book is connecting for me?

[00:02:26]But in this book, I think he conveyed everything that he was conveying in that second essay, but this one there were no crumbs left. Like I ate it completely up and I realized it's because he attached it to characters.

[00:02:41]Now we're not just talking about like injustice of the incarceration system.

[00:02:44]We're not just talking about religion and the contradiction of it all. We're not just talking about racism. We're not just talking about all these ideas that I actually enjoy talking about with other people.

[00:02:57]We're talking about those things, but he's attached it to a person. He's attached it to a family and now I'm eating it up.

[00:03:05]Girl, I encourage you to read it.

[00:03:06]Honestly, if you haven't read The Fire Next Time, I encourage you to read that as well and then soon after read If Beale Street Could Talk so you can see if you're seeing what I'm seeing. If you're picking up what I'm putting down.

[00:03:19]Or is it just a me thing? It could very well just be a me thing. I haven't flushed out any of these thoughts, I want you to know. When I say I just finished this book, I literally mean like 2 seconds before picking up this mic and camera, I finished this book on audio, no less. Highly recommend the audio experience. So the whole point of me picking up If Beale Street Could Talk is because I'm working my way through some black classics. I don't necessarily have like a timeline that I want to do this in. I just want to make a conscious effort to pick up more black classics.

[00:03:47]And I never even like planned on filming a video for this book. I was just going to, you know, mention it in my monthly reading wrap-up. Something I've been doing lately is trying to make sure that the joy I have when I'm reading or the joy I get from reading doesn't leave just because I've created this space online where I talk about books and now I'm getting paid to do such things.

[00:04:07]I find that when you monetize a hobby, you rob yourself of the joy of that hobby most of the time, not all the time, but most of the time. And because I don't want that to happen to reading, I'm not going to vlog or like feel the need to discuss every book that I read. I will bring them up in my monthly reading wrap-ups, but I don't necessarily need to take you guys with me on every single reading journey. And so that was kind of this. That's kind of why I picked this book up and had no intentions of making a video about it, but it impacted me so much that I needed to talk to someone about it. My husband isn't home right now cuz usually I would literally just be dumping all of this on him and he's not here right now, so I'm going to talk to you about it. I picked this book up not necessarily like expecting for it to become one of my like new favorite books of all time, which I do believe that it has been.

[00:04:53]It It's now like one of my Mount Rushmore books, you know, like those top books that are just like up there.

[00:05:00]It's this one for me because the way I have been processing after reading, I'm just like I need to get all of my thoughts out right now. This video may never even see the light of day.

[00:05:12]This may just be a way of me processing this book or I might post it. I don't know. We'll see how it goes. Synopsis, like brief brief brief because I want you to read it for yourself, but we are following Tish and Fonny and they are two people in love since they were children.

[00:05:25]And uh as their love grows and as they mature, some things happen in their lives that causes Fonny to be imprisoned. He is falsely imprisoned and Tish ends up pregnant.

[00:05:38]And so we are following Tish as she is fighting to get Fonny out of jail in time for their baby, for their new baby.

[00:05:46]I love how James Baldwin used that and fleshed it out to be something so much bigger, but in a book that is so short. I feel like I have read 400 pages of a book and there's only 100 There's less than 200 pages in this book. Less than 200.

[00:06:08]His ability to show hope without necessarily giving us like a HEA.

[00:06:18]I remember mentioning in one of in my reading DNA video, which if you haven't seen that, I'll leave it linked down below. It's just kind of like a vlog. I should have made that like it's own stand-alone video, but whatever. It's a vlog where I just where I discuss like my reading DNA and how I've come to realize that a lot of the things that I love in books aren't necessarily tied to a genre, but instead they're tied to like a theme or some sort of element that's like a common thread throughout all of my favorite books. This book follows that to a T. Okay, we're getting They're getting generational drama and trauma.

[00:06:48]Multiple points of view, kind of, but that's not really that doesn't really matter, but we do get like multiple points of view. Emotional damage, absolutely. People putting themselves back together, absolutely.

[00:07:00]There's no magical elements in this necessarily. Makes me stare at the wall afterwards, yeah, that's literally what I'm doing right now. I'm just processing it with you guys.

[00:07:09]And when the ancestors have notes, I don't know. I don't necessarily think this one I mean, I'm sure I could probably figure out a way to make that fit, but right now at the top of my head, that prompt doesn't necessarily fit, but it's fine because this is still a five-star book for me. Something else that I needed to add to my reading DNA is family dynamics. I just love family dynamics in general, whether that's sibling dynamics, husband and wife, father and son, like all the family dynamics in any way that that could be a dynamic, I love that stuff as well. So, that's also now on my reading DNA list.

[00:07:37]And this book definitely fits the bill for that.

[00:07:40]Man.

[00:07:43]I'm I'm sorry if this is all over the place because I really am processing this with you guys as I'm just like processing it myself.

[00:07:51]If Beale Street Could Talk, while it focuses on the injustice of our legal system, for sure.

[00:07:59]I love that that's not the only thing it focused on.

[00:08:02]It focused on, despite having that in this country, we can still have hope. There is still love that can be found. The community aspect of it, Fonny was imprisoned, but there were so many people trying to help Fonny get out of prison, right? It wasn't just Fonny on his own, and I'm sure that while he was inside he definitely felt like it was just him, but you was the reader were were able to see the lengths that his family, friends, and loved ones were able to go to to try and get this man out of prison.

[00:08:36]One of our characters goes all the way to Puerto Rico. Go to Puerto Rico because she's trying to help this young man get out of jail.

[00:08:43]And just the way that Baldwin explained, even just the trip to Puerto Rico, right? Like, this is a black American woman going to Puerto Rico, which I do know that Puerto Rico is a part of the United States of America, but you guys understand what I'm trying to say. She goes there and they don't speak She doesn't speak the language.

[00:09:01]She gets there and she's met with nothing but respect.

[00:09:05]She's met with care, honor, even like they honored her in a way. They viewed her as a woman of stature because of her age, because obviously this is someone that could be your mother. This is someone that could be your auntie, your sister, and so you meet her with reverence, even though you don't know her. It's ability to show that a black woman can go to Puerto Rico and get these things with no questions. At every turn she's being helped in some way, you know, like, whether that's transportation or lodging or even just safety moving about the city, she's being helped in a way that shows honor and respect.

[00:09:48]Knowing that when she goes home, she that's not even something that she could ever experience, ever hope to experience from people who are supposed to be her people. You know, like, "You're supposed to be my neighbor, but this is not something that I could experience here." I know James Baldwin spent a lot of time in his adult life, I believe in France or Paris or just overseas in general because in the United States, he did not feel at home. And so, I thought that was really interesting for him to put just that little snippet. It wasn't even like a big part of the book, but to put that little snippet of how black Americans can travel abroad or travel to other places and feel more at home in these foreign lands than they do in their homeland.

[00:10:33]Homeland in quotation. Other things that were explored in The Fire Next Time that I think James Baldwin also explored in If Beale Street Could Talk was the mass incarceration.

[00:10:44]I read that in The Fire Next Time, and even religion. Oh, that was another one that he also discussed here a lot in that second essay.

[00:10:53]Mass incarceration and religion, and while I grasped his thoughts and his ideas and his opinions and even agreed with a lot of them, I couldn't necessarily connect to it. As a reader, I'm just like, I feel like I'm reading a textbook almost or like it just I'm not enjoying this.

[00:11:12]And that's not to say that you have to like enjoy everything you that you read, but if I'm reading in my downtime, I want to learn something, I want to discuss something, I want my mind to stretch while I'm reading these things.

[00:11:23]But if I'm going to complete the book, I need to be enjoying it in some way.

[00:11:29]He hit on all of those things, all of those very important topics, he hit on them all in this book. But it lived for me even more because he connected them to a character. He connected them to a person. So now not only are we talking about mass incarceration and the inhumanity of it, but now you've connected it to Fonny and I'm living through Fonny as he experiences this. So now this is not just an idea that I have or like this thing that you have discussed and I have agreed with you on, but it's something that will stay with me forever now because it's connected to a character, to a person, to a human.

[00:12:10]It just solidified the fact that I really don't enjoy non-fiction. And I do believe and know for a fact that you can convey all of those things that are conveyed in non-fiction in a fiction novel and teach someone just as much.

[00:12:25]I mean, he showed he literally shows you that you can do so beautifully as well.

[00:12:29]Like his prose were amazing. His prose Okay, okay, okay, let me try to get my thoughts together. There is a respect and honor that was received even to Fonny in his everyday life in New York.

[00:12:42]Um by complete strangers. That was also so beautiful to witness, right? Like there can be inhumanity in general.

[00:12:50]There are good people and there are bad people.

[00:12:52]And life is not full of bad people. And I loved that James Baldwin explored the duality of that, that he showed the horrible people that exist, but he also showed the beautiful the beautiful humanity that also exists, that humanity is worth saving. Right? It's worth leaving your home. It's worth going and building community because there are good people out there. And Fonny had that, not even just with his family, but with his neighbors, with restaurant owners. There was a situation that occurred in Tish and Fonny where they were spoken up for from a by a complete stranger who was not black, who was like who wasn't necessarily part of their immediate community but who saw what was happening and stood up for that. We need to see that more in books.

[00:13:48]I think because if you even just in real life, turning on the news, if you turn on the news, you would truly believe there were all just that were cooked.

[00:13:57]That were cooked. That humanity in general is cooked. And while I do believe that to some extent, there are still still good people out there who don't necessarily look like you.

[00:14:07]Reading this book, first of all, can break your heart but it doesn't leave you hopeless.

[00:14:14]We are all There are so many similarities in us, more similarities than there are differences. And I think that this book showed that in such a beautiful and relatable way.

[00:14:25]That yes, there are people out there who absolutely suck. But there are just as many good people out there as well.

[00:14:32]And but you have to be like willing to build community to find those good people.

[00:14:37]Something else. Just like complete strangers can be absolutely amazing and beautiful and accepting, your own family members can be the complete opposite.

[00:14:52]It be your own people sometimes, you know?

[00:14:55]That's all I'm going to say about that.

[00:14:56]But I loved that James threw that in as well. Like sometimes complete strangers can be more family to you than your own family. Can be more loving and accepting to you than your own family. I think he conveyed that beautifully.

[00:15:12]The beautiful relationship between a father and a son isn't necessarily always conveyed, especially when it um comes to black Americans. Boohoo, sad story. Black American dad story. I love the fact that in this book the fathers were there. The fathers were there and accounted for, very much so, and doing their absolute best. Um, sometimes your best isn't enough, unfortunately. But just being there and being present and letting people know that you care, that you love them, I think makes all the difference. Um, it was quite heartbreaking in this story, but I enjoyed seeing the fact that fathers were present, um, and accounted for. I loved that.

[00:15:55]Sisters, also, as someone who is an older sister, I loved seeing the dynamic between the sisters and the older sister who was not playing about her little sister, who was coming for you, you, and you behind her little sister. I loved that.

[00:16:11]I loved her character. Honestly, wish we could have gotten more of her because every time she spoke on page, I was like, period, let them know.

[00:16:19]Tish ain't the one or the two.

[00:16:21]>> [laughter] >> Y'all, I'm just rambling because I really wanted to get this out. I will say also, something else that I just something else I noticed, like, and I keep bringing these books up because they're the books, honestly, that triggered like my whole thought process on my reading DNA because I was trying to figure out how I truly felt about these books and why I felt that way. But when I read The Book of Harlem and Camilla's Roses by Bernice L. McFadden, I was trying to figure out like what about those endings really pissed me off.

[00:16:57]Because the writing was outstanding. The stories were superb. Like, I knew those characters. Like, they live rent-free in my head.

[00:17:07]Honestly, the amount of time I have spent thinking about both books demands that they become five stars in my eyes.

[00:17:17]But there is still also something about them that is just like, I did not like the endings of those books.

[00:17:25]And, it was because I felt so incredibly hopeless for those characters. And then, I had to ask myself like, well, not every book can have a happily ever after because that's not realistic.

[00:17:39]That's not real life.

[00:17:41]And then, I thought about the books that I read by Tayari Jones.

[00:17:45]I read Kin by her. I read Silver Sparrow by her.

[00:17:50]And, I'm just like, those didn't necessarily have like HEAs either, but I did not feel hopeless after reading them.

[00:17:59]The ending of this book, I will say, could probably tick some people off, and I can definitely understand why.

[00:18:05]But, it still gave me not happily ever after, but very much hope. Like, I felt hopeful for Tish. I felt hopeful for the baby. I felt hopeful because in the end, love can win. I feel like black people, black Americans specifically, have shown that generation after generation.

[00:18:28]The countless injustices that we experience, in the end, you cannot take our hope or our love. And as long as we have those things, we will always rise again. We will always get back up. We will always keep going. We will always keep fighting. That's what I felt after I read this book. There were so many things happening to these characters, to these people, to this family in general.

[00:18:53]But, they just kept rising. They kept going forward. And, there were moments where you could see that some of the characters were losing hope. But, this is where community and family comes in because when that was happening, they would encourage each other. Like, we have to keep going. Somebody is counting on us. There is someone coming, and they need us to keep going. We cannot stop here because someone else is coming.

[00:19:17]Girl, that speaks to my spirit. I don't know about you. Generations have had to think that way. Could you imagine if generations stopped thinking that way?

[00:19:25]And if they said, "Forget what's coming behind me.

[00:19:29]All I see is what's in front of me now and there is no hope and now I will stop."

[00:19:34]Could you imagine?

[00:19:37]If our ancestors thought that way, if the people that came before us thought that way, there would be no today.

[00:19:41]Written in 19 something, 1970s or 60s.

[00:19:46]It was beautiful.

[00:19:47]It was so beautiful.

[00:19:49]Not just for the family, but what the the the theme, the overarching theme of it all is just like hope and love still wins even when they want to isolate us, even when they want to take us down, even when they want to defeat us, you can't. We don't die, we multiply.

[00:20:08]>> [laughter] >> I loved I loved this book.

[00:20:12]I love this book. I'll continue processing in my own time, but I really wanted to wanted to get this out of my mind, out of my spirit and into the air.

[00:20:20]Um I'm probably going to go write all about it now, but thank you so much for picking up my FaceTime, girl. I hope you're having a good day. I hope you continue to have a good day.

[00:20:28]And don't forget to like, comment, subscribe, and hype. And I'll see you in the next in the next one, girl.

[00:20:35]Bye.

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