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A person who works in my office building is in the process of writing a novel. He has already completed a first draft and is working with an editor to prepare it for publication. Recently he asked me if I would like to read his current version of the novel, and I agreed.
The book, while fiction, is semi-autobiographical, with a few invented characters and scenes but largely based on the author's life experiences. Specifically, the story is set in the metropolitan area he and I both live in in real life.
I am a white man, and my coworker is a black man. I've lived in this part of the country for about fifteen years, but he--who is a few decades older than me--has lived here for essentially his entire life. He has not only seen a much longer period of the life of the city than I have, but he has experienced it through the lens of being black.
We come from very different backgrounds, which is a large part of what makes the novel so fascinating to me. I have lived a largely middle-class life, sometimes reaching into the upper climbs of the middle class. I was born in a major city, but I spent the majority of my childhood in a very small farm town with a majority white population (and a sizeable Hispanic minority), all of whom were Christian conservatives. Even today I live in a mostly white neighborhood in a relatively upscale part of town. I have no concept of what it's like to live in a poor district, a majority black neighborhood, or on the receiving end of widespread racism.
The story is raw and gripping, and sometimes the events described are difficult to stomach. One part of the experience that stands out to me is when he mentions real-life landmarks in the area: landmarks I'm well familiar with but that have a very different significance to me than they do to the characters. Though I am not a native, it helps ground the story for me, and it makes the events feel that much more real.
I have not yet finished the novel; I'm not quite to the halfway point. I've greatly enjoyed what I've read so far, though. I look forward to seeing it published one day.
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[Last updated: 2022-06-29]