Let’s begin by double-checking that everybody knows about the MOVE bombing in the 1980s. Because I didn’t know about it until Code Switch mentioned it a while ago, and then right after that, in yet-further proof of the Baader-Meinhof phenomenon, I encountered it in Asali Solomon’s debut novel Disgruntled.
Basically there was this militant group called MOVE that lived in a Philadelphia apartment and their kids ran around naked and they composted their own stuff, which drew roaches. Also various members were under indictment for various things. So the Philly cops came to their house, and the members of MOVE and the cops exchanged fire, and then the cops bombed the building, killing a handful of people (including several children) and igniting a fire that destroyed over 60 nearby houses. This was in 1985. Now you know.
Oh, something else, too: Disgruntled isn’t the negative of gruntled, so you can stop making that joke. It actually means something closer to thoroughly gruntled. The prefix “dis” can mean that sometimes, as in disseminate.
Disgruntled, by Asali Solomon (now that we’ve gotten that important background information taken care of), is about a girl called Kenya growing up in 1980s Philadephia. (Ah, yes, the connection becomes clear.) It’s a classic coming-of-age story, the best kind, where the central character is perpetually finding herself in new variations of her former situation (different parental figures, different schools, etc.) and having to reassess what she has formerly understood about the world.
Solomon is particularly gifted at growing up Kenya’s voice in a way that feels organic and realistic. When she’s a little girl, she thinks like a little girl. As a teenager, she thinks like a teenager — more grown up than before, more discerning about where she places her trust, but also prone to throwing the kind of teenager temper tantrums where she screams cruel things at the adults around her, with little thought (until afterward) for the collateral damage.
Thanks much to the lovely Shannon of River City Reading for recommending this book, and a stern scowl at my library for shelving it in a totally non-intuitive display location so I had to look for it on three separate library trips before I found it.
(It wasn’t that non-intuitive.)
(Not perfect, but I could probably have found it on the first trip if I’d been persistent.)
Friends: Are there important historical moments you didn’t learn about until way later than you think is reasonable? (Oh, Jonestown! That’s another one! Never heard of Jonestown until I was in college & my college boyfriend mentioned it!)