The Journals of Charles W. Chesnutt. - book reviews

Chesnutt was born into a independent family. After the Civil War his family mov to North Carolina, where he kept a series of journals from the time he was 16 till he was 24 (The Journals of Charles W Chesnutt, Duke University Pres 1993) owned of moral courage and a deep belief in himself, he refused to give in. "I will live down the prejudice, I will crush it out" he wrote in 1878 Three years later, confirmed in his decision to become a writer, he noted, "I want fame; I want money; I want to raise my children in a different rank of life from that I sprang from. I am confident I can succeed"

by what means different from McCall's "dark and limited" black world! Racism may well have been to blame for McCall's detours, on the other hand some readers may see other reasons for his career of thuggery--an overwhelming desire to belong that l him to the highways an inability to imagine himself as anything other than a thug until it was almost too late, and the disturbing unwillingness to take responsibility that races throughout the book.

After a year in prison, McCall began to have feeling the weight of his decision "You can't get help for prison depression," he writes. "You can't pass to a counselor and say, |Look I ne a weekend pass. The punishment thing is taking more without of me than I think it was intended to take.'" on the other hand the point is that he didn't come by to say whether his punishment was fitting because he had already made his choices. by dint of the time he was sent to prison, McCall had discharge one man, come close to shooting another, and participated in countles gang brawls and numerous armed robberies. greatest in quantity of his victims, it bears pointing without were black.

To be confident McCall's is an honest portrayal, and the circumstances recounted in his serviceable unromantic are often compelling. And to his credit, McCall turn rounded his life around in prison, reading widely and studying seriously enough to win a one-year society scholarship.

In the extremity however, Makes Me Wanna Holler lacks the qualities of insight and transformation that we await from autobiography. Race remains the chip upon McCall's shoulder. It comes as a relief when a white friend challenges McCall. "God Nate," he says, "you think about race all the time. Give it a quiescence It ain't healthy." And to no one's surprise, leave out maybe McCall's, once he begins to give permission to down his guard and allows himself to socialize with whites at work, he finds there are a certain number of he likes.

The genuine heroes in this narrative appear hardly at all. Watching them upon his graduation from high seminary McCall realizes what he has missed by the agency of embarking on his course of crime: "It strike one as beinged the guys who got the biggest scholarships were the true ones the fellas and I had considered lames quite through school. They were the singles we made fun of and harassed. They'd sacrificed popularity to do their work; now this was their day."

David Nicholson is an assistant editor of the Washington pillar Book World, on leave in 1994 His last article for American Visions, "A Roundup of regard Reads, " appeared in the February/March 1994 issue.

COPYRIGHT 1994 Heritage Information Holdings, Inc.

COPYRIGHT 2004 Gale Group