Everywhere You Don't Belong by Gabriel Bump

 

Book Discussion of Everywhere You Don’t Belong by Gabriel Bump

 

The Urban Life Experience Book Discussion Series continued on Sept. 18^th at the Wilson Library. Nine of us met in person, while two more people joined in via Zoom.

This was one of our most contentious book discussions ever. The people who hated the book were so strong in their assessment that I think that the people who liked it were almost afraid to admit that they liked it. The characters may not be as fleshed out as they could have been and of course the plot is improbable but there were some really funny parts in the book. I understand that the author had studied playwriting, which makes sense because scenes and dialogue are the standout qualities. This book has also been optioned to become a television series.

 

The protagonist is Claude McKay Love, an average Black young man living on Chicago’s South Side with his grandmother and her friend Paul. Claude’s parents abandoned him when he was small. He loves his grandmother and even loves Paul, but he sees that the lifestyle in the house is dysfunctional and the streets are extremely dangerous. Claude’s goal is to get away from the violence of his neighborhood by going away to college.  Paul is gay and had been a prominent photographer. Now he is lovelorn and bordering on alcoholism. There is a gang in their neighborhood called the Redbelters. Claude’s girlfriend crosses the Redbelters and she shows up at Claude’s college in Missouri, leading the gang to come to Missouri to seek retribution and even harassing poor Grandma and Paul.

 

I began the discussion with what I thought would have been a “laugh out loud” scene that described Paul laying wait for and then attacking a man who had “stolen” his lover.

p.134-135: “He stepped out of the car with his staff. I rolled down my window. He jumped in front of the man and started wildly swinging. He held the staff out in front of his body. They advanced on each other.

‘This is your last chance,’ Paul said. His legs were unstable.

‘Round two?’ Charles Doyle asked.

Paul got close enough to try a move I saw him practice on Grandma’s mannequin. He jumped in the air, held the staff like a javelin, and tried to jab it into Charles Doyle’s neck. He called it the kill shot. It worked one out of ten times against the mannequin.”

Not only didn’t the group laugh with me, they were embarrassed for me for laughing.

 

We ended up having one of the better book talks because of the perceived shortcomings of the book. We got into a conversation about readers being able to relate to the protagonist as a requirement for calling a book “good.”

Even though the women in the group insisted the book wasn’t that well written, Shelara shared a beautiful piece of writing describing Claude on the phone with Grandma and Paul:

p.244 “I wanted to ask if I would see them again, somewhere, anywhere. I wanted to say thank you and I love you and I hope you forgive me. The right thing to say spun at an unreachable distance, just over there, behind my eyes, over my head. They knew me. They loved me. They wanted me to survive. They would find me wherever I was. I pictured them both hunched over the phone, bruised, shaken standing firm, South Shore buzzing outside their windows, a bus heading downtown, a bus heading further south; I pictured Chicago and all its divisions revealed, at once, in a complicated ballet.”

Judy, apparently tired of everyone slamming the book, said, “I’m going to take a risk and defend it a little bit. It had a type of immediacy about it. Claude had no agency in the world. He was overwhelmed and confused. To me it was very movingly conveyed. I have felt he way he felt.

Sarah added, “He kept going back to not knowing his parents.

Judy continued, “He was looking for something to hold on to. Whatever he did was never enough.

Jezrie, who is an extremely thoughtful reader, offered, “I thought this was too quick of a read. I thought it was going to be more about him and his childhood friends, then all of a sudden, he’s college-aged, going to Missouri. This leaving was a rebellion, so to speak.”

Laura added, “The thing that struck me was the sense of not belonging. How do you become your best self? She called our attention to the last lines of the novel:

p.261 “When the sun rises and Janice looks right at me, I see them all in her eyes. Grandma and Paul, happy, laughing, waving-safe; everyone in South Shore, safe and happy. They’re okay without us. They forgive us for leaving.

We’re okay too.

Yes. Right where we belong."