Tuesday, June 23, 2020

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: Trouble the Saints by Alaya Dawn Johnson


Full Disclosure:  This book was read as an e-ARC (Advance Reader Copy) obtained via Netgalley from the publisher in advance of the book's release on July 21, 2020 in exchange for a potential review.  I give my word that this did not affect my review in any way - if I felt conflicted in any way, I would simply have declined to review the book.


Trouble the Saints is the latest novel from Nebula Award winner Alaya Dawn Johnson, and her first in a few years (as well as her first non YA novel in a lot of years).  I loved her last two books, the Norton (Nebula Award for YA) nominated "The Summer Prince" and the Norton-winning "Love is the Drug."  Both featured stories of love and family, but also dealt tremendously with themes of privilege, class and race - The Summer Prince through its post apocalyptic supposedly-utopian setting while Love is the Drug through its near future story of a well off Black teen in DC - and featured characters who you couldn't help grow in love with as they dealt with those problems.  So yeah, when I noticed (late) that Johnson had a new novel coming out this year, I was so happy to get it early via Netgalley and read it less than a week later despite having a whole bunch of other books on my backlist.

And Trouble the Saints is a tremendous novel, diving even more openly into themes of race and oppression than the prior two Johnson works I've read, through an alternate history novel set around 1941 in mob-riddled New York.  The book's a bit of a mess honestly, especially in the beginning, but its three main characters are tremendous, as they try and deal with being people of color in a racist New York, and the obligations that come upon them from having "the hands", a juju-esque magic found only in non-whites which seems to demand them act in some way.  Make no mistake: this is not a fun book, it's a bloody one with a lot of pain and agony, as our protagonists - not good people themselves - struggle with a system that both then and now spits out people of color and chews them out in favor of those less deserving.  But it's a damn powerful one, and if not a tour-de-force, it's close.


---------------------------------------------------Plot Summary---------------------------------------------------
 In 1940/1941 New York, Phyllis "Pea" Green passes as white woman named Phyllis LeBlanc, and uses her gifted "Hands" to serve as the "Knife" or "Angel" of powerful White Russian mobster Victor, with her kills being reserved for those who truly deserve it.  But after months without killing, she receives a second dream, her Hands begin to pull her towards a truth she should have known long before, and a bloody path that she has tried to deny.

Devajyoti "Dev" Patil has "Hands" gifted with the ability to sense threats - to him or to/from anyone they touch.  Acting as a bartender for Victor, he finds himself drawn towards the bloody path of Pea, despite her warping his strong sense of right and wrong.

Tamara Anderson does not have the Hands - what she has is an Oracle's power to see futures in the cards, a power that calls to her and won't let her go.  So while she may wish she could simply run Victor's nightclub with all the entertainment he will let a Black girl like her provide, the Cards won't let her be that easily.

And in a world where injustice and oppression drive those of color beneath the boot heel of their inferiors, just because of the color of their skin, where the White police will look the other way as it all happens, none of Pea, Dev, or Tamara will be able to find peace or to avoid the call of a saint - gifted or cursed with dreams and hands that will not let go......
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Trouble the Saints is essentially split into three acts, with each act separated switching the perspective to a different main character.  For the sake of avoiding spoilers, I've essentially just summarized character dynamics above, because the plot of each act shifts with the character shifts, so to describe any act in detail may spoil the rest.  The above is not to say however that each act is told the same way or even consistently within the same act - the three acts on occasion - especially the first one - are interrupted by interludes in which card readings are revealed and then described obliquely by an omniscient narrator, for example.  Other narrative shifts includes a random chapter in the first act told in second person - with the narrator literally being the protagonist's hands - and the second act featuring intermittent flashback chapters.  It's honestly a bit of a mess, which sometimes left me confused - especially in the first act - of what is going on, but for the most part it works really well to carry the themes and the characters in this novel.

These themes are underlined in the setting and characters.  The book is set in an alternate version of New York 1940/1941, right before the American entry into World War 2.  In this world, people of color sometimes grow up to find they have "The Hands", which come together with a prophetic dream of something for them to do, along with the numbers - which aren't just about playing a Numbers Racket but about playing one's life.  The Hands are essentially gifts, but these gifts, coming only to people of color, are ones that raise dangerous attention from white people, especially given they can be things as dangerous as "revealing secrets" or "being able to see threats."  And as the story goes on, it's revealed that these dreams and Hands came originally en mass when people of color had moments of freedom, before white people tried to snatch those away....and that they might have minds of their own.

This leads into our three main characters.  Phyllis aka Pea, has the "hands" - and her gift essentially makes her perfect at throwing objects - whether that be knives, rocks, or whatever, she has perfect aim.  She has become the famed killer for a White mob boss, believing that he is using her only for "just" kills of wrongdoers - such as a serial killer who is trying to cut off POC's hands for their own use.  But her own hands and dreams suggest she should be doing something other than enabling a white man's grab for power at the expense of anyone else, particularly at the expense of people of color's lives, a suggestion with teeth that conflicts with Pea's growing unwillingness to kill.  Then we have Dev, whose ability to see threats obviously makes him an asset to people on all sides of the law, and who has nightmares over the blood he's seen his love (Pea) cause and of his own attraction to that blood, and what that says about his own morals of right and wrong.  And then there's Tamara, who responded to an act of racism down south by attaching herself to the most powerful White man she could find, and tried to use that as cover to stay out of any dangerous business with questionable moral choices.....despite her oracular powers trying to repeatedly push her in directions with stronger stances.  And a fourth major character, Walter Finch - a half Native man who all the white men call the "Red Man" instead of trying to learn his name, serves as a second in command to the White mob boss, only unable to take control because of his own skin despite being fully capable.

These characters and the setting are used to showcase the extent of oppression even in the part of the US that was supposedly better (the North) as we take turns in and out of the City.  Sure you have oppressors like Victor, who are blatantly racist and murderous in their attitudes towards people of color having anything they don't have.  But then you also have people like the Bobbies - a father and son in control of a small town who don't care about what anyone else feels as they look only to enrich themselves - and if a black boy is threatening to out horrible secrets, the problem is the boy, not the secrets.  And you have people like Craver, who makes use of POC children with the hands to scare off Whites from affecting the causes important to him, without giving a damn for the actual people behind those hands - and the causes are literally as dead as bones in the ground.  And then you have those nameless few who would deny care to a POC in need solely on the basis of their race - or even on the basis of whether they recognize whether or not a light skinned person is "White" or not, who are simply elements of the same thing.

All three of the major characters - and Walter as well - come against all of these oppressors and oppressive systems over the course of their stories.  And they face choices on how to face off against them, because their Hands and Dreams won't let them simply stay silent - even if they want to pretend they could.  Pea's hands literally want to force her to right a wrong, to avenge.  Dev's prevent him from looking ignoring threats that make him literally tingle awake.  And Tamara's draw her attention to wrongs coming in the future....even if her actions are limited in how they can prevent them from coming to pass, with a system so ingrained against them all, poised to steal everything on a moment's notice.  And even as they all try to fight against this system, they also try to make the best of their own lives for themselves and their futures, and in their loves as well.  As with Johnson's other book, love and its importance and irrationality is a key part of it all, as the characters try to find it and deal with it in spite of everything else (there are some pretty passionate scenes is all I'll say).

Johnson makes this all mostly work, even if again it's a bit confusing early on, and by the end I just had to keep reading to see how it would turn out, with me left breathless by the end.  Again, this is not a fun ending, or even one hopeful on its face, as after all, the system is still largely in place today 80 years later.  But Johnson shows that powerfully in the end, and damn is it something.

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