I don't think I read this book correctly. Lately, I read most of my books on the subway while listening to Podcasts and ignoring my fellow commuters. This sometimes prevents me from paying close attention when I need to, like to this book. I could tell before I was halfway in, it would have been better served by reading it at home over a long weekend or something, but what can you do, a boy's gots to earn (or something to that affect).
Man Gone Down is the story of a unnamed man trying to set his life in order over the span of about 6 days at the end of the summer in Brooklyn in Manhattan in 2003 or '04, but it bleeds into his past as a kid in Boston and as a student in Harvard and one of the CUNY schools (I forget which). Some of his past is told straight up and some as his remembrances of it all. His wife and 3 kids are in Boston with his mother-in-law while he tries to get a job and money for an apartment and tuition. All throughout this he struggles against his memories of growing up poor and black in the Boston suburbs, his personal and familial struggle with alcohol, the loss of a friend in the World Trade Center and his never ending fear his white wife will wise up and leave him. He works as a day laborer trying to raise the cash, but it turns out to be another somewhat successful attempt at self-sabotage.
This is a well written tale of a man trying to find himself and right his ship (yes, another one of those) but I wouldn't say he succeeds. Not saying he fails, but nothing comes easy for this man, like trying to manage even the smallest amount of success like winning an amateur night singing contest in a bar, or attempting to collect a much needed debt owed to him by a previous landlord. Even a celebratory birthday dinner with his friend and 2 pretty lawyers is torture for him. Part of me was screaming (silently, remember I was on the subway) "Suck it up dude and try to enjoy yourself" but it obvious this man was and is tortured by his past and somewhat broken beyond repair.
Man Gone Down is certainly worth your time to read it, but try to give it a better time then I did.
Book can be found herehttp://www.amazon.com/Man-Gone-Down-Michael-Thomas/dp/B0018SWAJ2/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1236820549&sr=1-1
7 down, 93 to go. Finished 3/11/2009
This post was written listening to "200 Million Thousand" by Black Lips & "Glasvegas" by Glasvegas
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
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