If Beale Street Could Talk by James Baldwin

In this book what I loved was Tish’s devotion to save Fonny, her optimism in the face of all that is going against them. Also, in the story, everything goes counter to what we would expect normally, even the end. Baldwin has caught the true reality of life, particularly of a young Afro-American man, exploited in the hands of white policemen. I came across this book accidentally, but its theme seems so relevant still today, particularly in the contexts of all those recent killings in America of young African-American men by white policemen that we see in the press.

Two phrases moved me to tears:
When Tish’s mother says toward the end, ‘Sufferings always end. It doesn’t get better necessarily, but it always ends.”
The other place is, at the beginning, when Tish is returning after seeing Fonny, and she is feeling very weak, and Baldwin compares the lawyers and the bondmen to vultures circling over a dying man in the desert…that is just so accurate!!

I really love the insights Baldwin has into life.