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Felice Laverne's Reviews > They Come in All Colors
They Come in All Colors
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Felice Laverne's review
bookshelves: netgalley, african-american-fiction, coming-of-age, cultural-surveys, full-review, historical-fiction, lit-fic, read-2018, reviewed-on-amazon
Jun 09, 2018
bookshelves: netgalley, african-american-fiction, coming-of-age, cultural-surveys, full-review, historical-fiction, lit-fic, read-2018, reviewed-on-amazon
See my EXCLUSIVE interview with the author HERE! Malcolm Hansen Chats With Me About His Debut Novel
Malcolm Hansen’s debut novel They Come in All Colors is a satirical narrative worthy of Paul Beatty’s stamp of approval. By that I mean it’s obvious that this book was either inspired or nurtured in some way by the Man Booker Prize-winning Beatty, if not both, and his style is so evident here that there were times this novel could have been written by the same hand. (He is even thanked in Color’s acknowledgements.) For those of you who follow my reviews, you’ll recall that I couldn’t stand Beatty’s award-winning The Sellout and marked it DNF, but just because the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree doesn’t mean it may not taste different.
They Come in All Colors is the story of one boy’s realization that the color of his skin does make a difference one long summer when the Freedom Riders come to his small town and the status quo around him is thrown into upheaval. Meet Huey, the smart-mouthed eight-year-old son of a white peanut farmer and a “mulatto’’ woman. Because of his Caucasian features and his close relationship with his father, Huey has always been allowed to pass as white, but when racial tensions erupt, resulting in protests, sit-ins, riots and the violent death of someone close to his family, the facts of life are very quickly called into question between this couple who cannot legally wed in the South and their son who finds himself banned from the “white” swimming pool and called n*gger for the first time.
One of the more effective devices used within these pages is satire. In fact, really, the entire premise of the novel is satirical, but I appreciated Hansen’s wielding of it here and found it to be far more useful and self-evident than Beatty displayed in The Sellout. Here, that humorous device had more meaning and thus resonated louder and longer for me. Case in point, Huey encounters the most ridiculous conversations with his parents as they both try to explain to him why he isn’t colored though his mother is black. They tell him he’s white with a tan – an ironic notion in and of itself in 1960s South Georgia:
(view spoiler)
Though the start of this book was far too similar in tone to The Sellout, which means it too almost got DNFd, I pushed through a bit further and found that Hansen showed real dexterity with the metaphors and analogies that abound in this narrative. The imagery of the South is realistic and comes off nearly as oppressive within these pages as it did in real life. One of the better metaphors comes when Huey tries to set his pet cat free after the violence in his town starts to come to a head; he makes a very clear parallel, though he himself does not know or understand it, between the release from the bondage of slavery just a few short generations before and his releasing of his pet into the wild:
Then, of course, there are the lovely and impactful nuggets of truth as Huey’s self-realization of his and his family’s status in the world around them continues snowballing – as he realizes that schools are segregated and that he is the “last person in town to discover the truth” about who he is. They come faster and harder in the second half of the novel as pretenses begin to be stripped away and the threshold for denial becomes shallower and shallower:
When I asked Mom who in his right mind would choose to be the descendant of a slave if given a choice, she gave me a contemptuous look.
You don’t have a choice.
Don’t be silly. Of course I do. We all have choices. Everything is a choice.
She called me, of all things, a disgrace to my race. I asked what she was referring to, precisely. Only the week before, she was peddling the idea of the whole concept of race as a sham concocted by a few eighteenth-century white men with powdered hair to more conveniently consolidate power, and now here I was, not having even had time to shit out the food I’d been eating at the time, come to find out that I was betraying it.
While we’re on the topic of the second half of They Come in All Colors, now’s as good a time as any to say that the latter fourth or so of the novel offered too many holes in the narrative for me to forgive and inspired more questions for me than satisfying answers. AND while we’re on the topic of my pet peeves with this book, now’s also as good a time as any to point out the added GLARING problem that there were no quotation marks used in this novel whatsoever. Normally, this narrative tool wouldn’t be a problem, but combined with the ramblingly verbose chunks of dialogue and the use of long chapters and thick, hulking narrative blocks on every page, traditional formatting of dialogue would have been a welcome reprieve to break up the pages and make this novel seem like a faster read. By the time I got to the middle of They Come in All Colors I was honestly halfway exhausted from wading through the waters of prose and checking the page count to see how close I was to the end. (spoiler: To my dismay, I was nowhere close to it.)
Yet, this novel did more good for me than it did harm. It called into question not only the lies we tell ourselves to cope but the lies adults tell children and parents tell their offspring to maintain their innocence. What good is the façade - what’s the point of holding onto a false innocence just a few weeks or months or short years longer - if the inevitable realization only hits harder and is more damaging than having understood it from the start? Because then a child must also cope with the fact that not only has their existence been a lie in some shape, form or fashion but that the adults around them are imperfect beings – who lie and cannot always be trusted to tell the truth. In Western civilization, we raise our kids with lies as a fundamental part of their upbringing – tooth fairies and Santa Clauses and excuses for the way the world is. I’ve never thought that was a productive or practical tool of parenting, and Hansen definitely manages to expose the detriment of shielding and coddling kids from what the real world holds. For that, I applauded him.
While the ending of the novel was too abrupt for me to find a ton of fulfillment in it, I did appreciate the nuggets of truth that Huey grows aware enough to impart on the reader -
- and that his mother, Peola, finally finds the strength to impart on him after nearly a decade of insisting to him that he was white:
For these dazzling moments of truth and forthrightness, I forgave many of the novel’s other sins. I recommend this novel to lovers of Paul Beatty’s work. You can think of Hansen as Paul Beatty lite. 😁 And I’d also recommend this novel to anyone who enjoys a cutting parody of historical events or an incisively sardonic look at the color line in America. You can always count on me to reach for a novel that offers both social commentary and satire all in the same sitting, so I’m happy to have added this book to my list of reads for this year. All in all, Hansen’s debut offered bite and wit to account for what it lacked (mostly a more streamlined formatting and a more punching conclusion) and for that I give 3.5 stars. ***
*I received an advance-read copy of this novel from the publisher, Simon & Schuster, via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.
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Malcolm Hansen’s debut novel They Come in All Colors is a satirical narrative worthy of Paul Beatty’s stamp of approval. By that I mean it’s obvious that this book was either inspired or nurtured in some way by the Man Booker Prize-winning Beatty, if not both, and his style is so evident here that there were times this novel could have been written by the same hand. (He is even thanked in Color’s acknowledgements.) For those of you who follow my reviews, you’ll recall that I couldn’t stand Beatty’s award-winning The Sellout and marked it DNF, but just because the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree doesn’t mean it may not taste different.
They Come in All Colors is the story of one boy’s realization that the color of his skin does make a difference one long summer when the Freedom Riders come to his small town and the status quo around him is thrown into upheaval. Meet Huey, the smart-mouthed eight-year-old son of a white peanut farmer and a “mulatto’’ woman. Because of his Caucasian features and his close relationship with his father, Huey has always been allowed to pass as white, but when racial tensions erupt, resulting in protests, sit-ins, riots and the violent death of someone close to his family, the facts of life are very quickly called into question between this couple who cannot legally wed in the South and their son who finds himself banned from the “white” swimming pool and called n*gger for the first time.
One of the more effective devices used within these pages is satire. In fact, really, the entire premise of the novel is satirical, but I appreciated Hansen’s wielding of it here and found it to be far more useful and self-evident than Beatty displayed in The Sellout. Here, that humorous device had more meaning and thus resonated louder and longer for me. Case in point, Huey encounters the most ridiculous conversations with his parents as they both try to explain to him why he isn’t colored though his mother is black. They tell him he’s white with a tan – an ironic notion in and of itself in 1960s South Georgia:
Huey, listen to me. Your mother’s what’s known in the scientific community as a phenotypic anomaly. Okay? Someone of unknown morphology. A racial enigma—something so new they don’t have a name for it yet. You watch Wild Kingdom, right? Well, it’s like a newly discovered animal that they haven’t figured out where to put it in the classification system yet. Okay? So it’s pointless to even bother asking. Because—well—the truth is that if people can’t agree, we might never know... At the end of the day, you’re just going to have to accept that even if she is what you think she might be—which she isn’t—her being one wouldn’t make you one. Okay? You’re just going to have to accept that you’re different. That’s all there is to it.
(view spoiler)
Though the start of this book was far too similar in tone to The Sellout, which means it too almost got DNFd, I pushed through a bit further and found that Hansen showed real dexterity with the metaphors and analogies that abound in this narrative. The imagery of the South is realistic and comes off nearly as oppressive within these pages as it did in real life. One of the better metaphors comes when Huey tries to set his pet cat free after the violence in his town starts to come to a head; he makes a very clear parallel, though he himself does not know or understand it, between the release from the bondage of slavery just a few short generations before and his releasing of his pet into the wild:
Having surrendered Snowflake to the bitter wild, I decided that I wanted her back. I knew in my heart that she wasn’t ready to be set free but I’d done it anyway. I could see that she wasn’t sure what to do with all that freedom, that it was too much for her little brain to comprehend. All that freedom being dumped on her all at once like that. I should probably have tested it out by giving her teaspoon-sized doses of freedom first. Perhaps let her run free in the den to start. What had I been thinking?
Then, of course, there are the lovely and impactful nuggets of truth as Huey’s self-realization of his and his family’s status in the world around them continues snowballing – as he realizes that schools are segregated and that he is the “last person in town to discover the truth” about who he is. They come faster and harder in the second half of the novel as pretenses begin to be stripped away and the threshold for denial becomes shallower and shallower:
When I asked Mom who in his right mind would choose to be the descendant of a slave if given a choice, she gave me a contemptuous look.
You don’t have a choice.
Don’t be silly. Of course I do. We all have choices. Everything is a choice.
She called me, of all things, a disgrace to my race. I asked what she was referring to, precisely. Only the week before, she was peddling the idea of the whole concept of race as a sham concocted by a few eighteenth-century white men with powdered hair to more conveniently consolidate power, and now here I was, not having even had time to shit out the food I’d been eating at the time, come to find out that I was betraying it.
While we’re on the topic of the second half of They Come in All Colors, now’s as good a time as any to say that the latter fourth or so of the novel offered too many holes in the narrative for me to forgive and inspired more questions for me than satisfying answers. AND while we’re on the topic of my pet peeves with this book, now’s also as good a time as any to point out the added GLARING problem that there were no quotation marks used in this novel whatsoever. Normally, this narrative tool wouldn’t be a problem, but combined with the ramblingly verbose chunks of dialogue and the use of long chapters and thick, hulking narrative blocks on every page, traditional formatting of dialogue would have been a welcome reprieve to break up the pages and make this novel seem like a faster read. By the time I got to the middle of They Come in All Colors I was honestly halfway exhausted from wading through the waters of prose and checking the page count to see how close I was to the end. (spoiler: To my dismay, I was nowhere close to it.)
Yet, this novel did more good for me than it did harm. It called into question not only the lies we tell ourselves to cope but the lies adults tell children and parents tell their offspring to maintain their innocence. What good is the façade - what’s the point of holding onto a false innocence just a few weeks or months or short years longer - if the inevitable realization only hits harder and is more damaging than having understood it from the start? Because then a child must also cope with the fact that not only has their existence been a lie in some shape, form or fashion but that the adults around them are imperfect beings – who lie and cannot always be trusted to tell the truth. In Western civilization, we raise our kids with lies as a fundamental part of their upbringing – tooth fairies and Santa Clauses and excuses for the way the world is. I’ve never thought that was a productive or practical tool of parenting, and Hansen definitely manages to expose the detriment of shielding and coddling kids from what the real world holds. For that, I applauded him.
While the ending of the novel was too abrupt for me to find a ton of fulfillment in it, I did appreciate the nuggets of truth that Huey grows aware enough to impart on the reader -
I was being mocked and maligned on a daily basis for having the gall to use the color of my skin to gain advantage where it concerned getting into Claremont, and here people like Zuk pulled shit like that all the time and weren’t even aware of it, much less feeling pangs of guilt about it.
- and that his mother, Peola, finally finds the strength to impart on him after nearly a decade of insisting to him that he was white:
I’m going to tell you this once, sweetheart, and then I’m never going to tell it to you again. So listen well. Any person you know who has not had a family member enslaved is at a two-hundred-fifty-year advantage over you. Okay? Not the other way around. You must understand that one simple fact. You have ancestors—blood relatives, real people, connected to you by blood and history—who were enslaved, who had their families, language, labor, freedom, possessions, and identity taken from them by force and used to the advantage of everyone you see around you right here, right now. That is, everyone but us. So do not ever let anyone talk to you like you’re some goddamned drain on society. Ever! That would be like scorning the man who has built your house for not owning one himself. That’s just wrong. The only thing you oughta be worried about asking any of them is what the hell they have to show for the last two hundred fifty years of their advantage. And I don’t care if for those two hundred fifty years their ancestors were in Europe or Asia or Russia or on Mars or wherever, because I can guarantee you that they were not in chains.
For these dazzling moments of truth and forthrightness, I forgave many of the novel’s other sins. I recommend this novel to lovers of Paul Beatty’s work. You can think of Hansen as Paul Beatty lite. 😁 And I’d also recommend this novel to anyone who enjoys a cutting parody of historical events or an incisively sardonic look at the color line in America. You can always count on me to reach for a novel that offers both social commentary and satire all in the same sitting, so I’m happy to have added this book to my list of reads for this year. All in all, Hansen’s debut offered bite and wit to account for what it lacked (mostly a more streamlined formatting and a more punching conclusion) and for that I give 3.5 stars. ***
*I received an advance-read copy of this novel from the publisher, Simon & Schuster, via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.
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Reading Progress
February 27, 2018
– Shelved
February 27, 2018
– Shelved as:
to-read
April 3, 2018
– Shelved as:
netgalley
June 4, 2018
–
Started Reading
June 4, 2018
–
35.0%
June 5, 2018
–
42.0%
"Men men men. Didn't even matter to her anymore if they were black or white...Either way I get lied to, taken for granted, mistreated, exploited...No matter where I turn there is some baby boy, boy, man-child, or elderly man-child asking me to do something for him...Men are shameless. I tell them I got a kid, they hear desperate. I tell them I'm separated, they hear easy. What more do I have to do besides wear a ring?"
June 9, 2018
–
Finished Reading
June 11, 2018
– Shelved as:
african-american-fiction
June 11, 2018
– Shelved as:
coming-of-age
June 11, 2018
– Shelved as:
cultural-surveys
June 11, 2018
– Shelved as:
full-review
June 11, 2018
– Shelved as:
historical-fiction
June 11, 2018
– Shelved as:
lit-fic
June 11, 2018
– Shelved as:
read-2018
June 11, 2018
– Shelved as:
reviewed-on-amazon
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Kristin (KC)
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Jun 10, 2018 08:30AM
You write incredible reviews, Navidad! I really enjoyed reading this— so well-said 😊
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Oh, thanks so much, Kristin! 🤗 So appreciated!
I agree with you about lying to children. The "minor" lies can still be destructive, and the more serious lies can truly be damaging to one's sense of self. A friend of mine once told me she loved that I never believed in Santa Claus and asked how to make that possible with her own children. I said, "Just don't tell them he exists." That's what my parents did. You actually have to TEACH lies, so if you don't say anything and answer truthfully when asked, kids can learn about the world and themselves as they grow and mature. I love your review--well-written and interesting without my even having read this book.
Jenny wrote: "I agree with you about lying to children. The "minor" lies can still be destructive, and the more serious lies can truly be damaging to one's sense of self. A friend of mine once told me she loved ..."Thanks, Jenny! I agree. I brought this topic up with a group of coworkers (who all have children of various ages) and it was a really great conversation. I, somehow, was surprised at how many of them believed in "lying" to their kids to "protect their innocence for as long as possible" even when I pointed out that they were 1) damaging the child's own logic-building skills (if they figure something out as false on their own and ask the parent about it and then the parent lies to them and tells them what they've figured out isn't true to "protect their innocence," kids start learning that they can't trust their own logic which I'd assume can lead to self-esteem issues or even self-doubt. Also 2) you're willfully suppressing the natural process of maturation.
Of course, when we say it like that it sounds like something we ABSOLUTELY should not be practicing, but people still stand by that thought process, a lot of the times simply because that's what they were raised with so it can be easier to just perpetuate the cycle.
I think a lot of parents try to protect their kids' innocence. I learned about this in context of narcissism. Because parents are so focused on their own mistakes or the issues that caused them trauma or negative memories as kids, they try to prevent their children from the same problems. It's more for themselves than for the kids. The truth is, we learn from mistakes and from trauma and from discovering things on our own. Very rarely does anyone learn secondhand. The deepest and most important "life lessons" come firsthand, no matter how painful those experiences may be. And you're so right about logic-building skills and natural maturation (a word I love, by the way, and one my 11th grade English teacher told me wasn't real!!!!). No matter, what, of course, there will be the Holden Caulfields in the world that want kids to stay as innocent as possible for as long as possible. But the catchers aren't helping in the long run, and I strongly believe that it's narcissistic, seeing one's childhood self in the next generation and trying to preserve one's own lost innocence. As you said, the cycle continues.
Jenny wrote: "I think a lot of parents try to protect their kids' innocence. I learned about this in context of narcissism. Because parents are so focused on their own mistakes or the issues that caused them tra..."WHEW! That's a powerful statement! I had this conversation with my older sister years ago. She literally said to me what you just said, "I want to prevent them from experiencing what I went through with my mom," but in turn she caused a lot more issues for them in other ways. No one is perfect. No parenting is going to be perfect and no one (that I know) emerges from childhood completely unscathed. But, blindly and aggressively trying to plug one hole in your kids' lives doesn't mean you won't cause another to pop up right behind you where you're not looking. Human error, you know.
From a more humorous, but definitely equally true, angle - think about ALLLLLLL the annoying kids you may have met in undergrad, like freshman year, who were so sheltered they'd never been away from home and who'd been suppressed into such "innocence" that they didn't even understand basic social ques and norms. They ran to the RA for every little thing and were completely unprepared when their parents got in the car and drove off, leaving them on campus. OR they went completely WILD when they were finally able to make choices and discover things on their own. We all recognize that person, whether we were them or knew them. And, lemme tell you, that person is the PERSONIFICATION of what we're talking about here! :)
Of course, plenty of people equal out and figure out their way in that situation, but that's still a great example of the painful "disillusionment" that's forced on kids who grow up in households with that mindset.
In the setting of this particular novel, not explaining to a child the racial implications of their heritage in 1960s South Georgia is just, in my opinion, wholly socially irresponsible - which set up a great platform for Hansen's satirical take on this situation.
My sister and I talk about this because she works with teens, and their parents all try to keep them from messing up, but the teen years are when you SHOULD mess up. We all made bad choices, and we still do as adults. It comes down to what your sister said--parents don't want their kids to mess up like they did because they know how much it hurt or what problems it caused. But they still had to go through it to learn, and their kids should be able to too. And, as you said, avoiding one error leads to more. Like your kids may not struggle with grades if you hound them about school, but they'll feel so much pressure that they party to blow off steam, causing problems with underage drinking or smoking or something else. Of course, it's easy to say this when I don't have kids yet...I know what you mean. Honestly, more as a teacher than as a college student. I get the students that blame everyone and everything else for their mistakes instead of owning up to them. They always have excuses. I have colleagues who tell me they get phone calls from parents! In COLLEGE! And I love it because, according to FERPA, we can't talk to parents anyway. You're so right that the helicopter parenting leads to these kinds of people!
I can't imagine my parents NOT talking to me about being Puerto Rican. I feel like I was very aware of being "different" than the norm most of my life. Hansen's idea to use that intense irony to talk about something so serious is brilliant, I must say.
Jenny wrote: "My sister and I talk about this because she works with teens, and their parents all try to keep them from messing up, but the teen years are when you SHOULD mess up. We all made bad choices, and we..."Of course, teen years are when we should mess up - that's why courts seal records once kids come of age. It's a learning experience that has to be had in order to become a fully functioning, prepared adult. LOL When I was in college, I dated a guy who's mom would call me to remind me to remind him of his dentists appointments and meetings with the dean (because he was deliberately ignoring her phone calls). She was a really nice woman with all the best intentions, but definitely a helicopter parent. (In turn, when we broke up, he wasn't used to such destabilization in his life - or having to solve his own problems for that matter. He failed every class that semester except for the home room-type class, which his roommate would take his student ID and badge him in for.)
I agree, the irony and satirical devices in this novel were SPOT ON. I remember having to re-read the passage above where Huey's dad tries to explain to him that his mother ISN'T black. It was hilarious in its absurdity.
That reminds me of the man my mom was engaged to before she met my dad. His mom told her she had to lay out his clothes for him every night...they were in their mid-twenties.... I guess some helicoptering never stops lol. I don't know what happened to him after he and my mom broke up, but I wonder if he did get married and if his wife lays his clothes out for him. The book seems like a great starting point for various discussions, which always makes a good book for me even if it's not my favorite.
Soooo, after all of this discussion on this review, I'm SO proud to say that I will be interviewing the author, Malcolm Hansen soon! Any questions
YOU
would like to ask him? :)
The most obvious for me would be his inspiration and why he chose to make such a serious topic a satire rather than a “straight” novel? Also, what he thinks of our ideas about lying to kids and “preserving their innocence”! That would be interesting to see his thoughts on.
Jenny wrote: "The most obvious for me would be his inspiration and why he chose to make such a serious topic a satire rather than a “straight” novel? Also, what he thinks of our ideas about lying to kids and “pr..."YES! I will definitely fill him in on this discussion! I think he'd be happy to hear about it, as he told me, "I'm always happy to hear that the book is getting people to think and talk."
I can’t wait to see what he says about it! I wonder if it’s a direction he would expect a discussion to go in.
Jenny wrote: "I can’t wait to see what he says about it! I wonder if it’s a direction he would expect a discussion to go in."I'm actually SHOCKED that he doesn't have more followers, being a Paul Beatty protege and having been published by such a major house. I think it'd be interesting to ask him about that. Maybe he's like Joe McGinniss Jr., another author I've enjoyed knowing/interviewing - not big on the spotlight.
Any other questions you guys would LOVE to ask Malcolm Hansen?
Elyse wrote: "Wait wait wait ... wait WAIT....I have to finish reading your review but I must say that is the greatest line:
“Just because the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree doesn’t mean it doesn’t taste ..."
HA! THANK YOU, Elyse!
Elyse wrote: "Hot damn!!! Great review... i’ve never read this author and you are one tough cookie. Lol ...I got a lot of value reading this review - ( the excepts too) - and most .....experiencing the way you ..."
Thanks again, Elyse! The Sellout is a Man Booker winner so I had to try it but just couldn't hang there. Malcolm Hansen is new on the scene, so he offers a fresh take on the race-line discussion - using satire as we just discussed of CLASS. With that in mind, you might really like this one - the race version of what CLASS was aiming to do!
BTW, I'll be INTERVIEWING Malcolm Hansen this week so look out for the interview I'll link here then! :) Should shed some light on his thought and writing process for this debut novel!!!!
