‘Hell of a Book’ by Jason Mott (2021) – 321 pages
When I read a novel, I try to find that one word which absolutely describes it. While I was reading ‘Hell of a Book’, the one word that kept coming up for me was “audacious”. This novel is as audacious as its title.
Our main protagonist here is a young male author with a vivid imagination who has just written a hell of a book. That’s what the publicist and everyone at his publishers say. Now he is on a book tour of major cities in the US.
“I mean, White writers don’t have to write about being White. They can write whatever books they want. But because I’m Black . . .” I pause to look at my hands to reaffirm that, yes, I really am Black. The story checks out. “. . . does that mean I can only ever write about Blackness? Am I allowed to be something other than simply the color of my skin?”
As our author flies from city to city, a young boy shows up occasionally, The Kid. Is The Kid real or just a figment of our author’s vivid imagination? Is The Kid our author when he was a boy in a small town in North Carolina?
“The fact of the matter is that if I had a bambino of my own, I might hesitate to strip down illusion and build up the reality that’s bleak, and painful, and full of woe and sadness. A parent sees a child come into the world, and all they want is for that child to have everything the world has to offer.”
Our author explains white people to The Kid.
“Most of them will think everything is okay and that you’re being treated well enough and that everything is beautiful. Because, I guess for them, all they can imagine is a world in which things are fair and beautiful, because, after all, they’ve always been treated fairly and beautifully.”
And there is a romantic interest for our author. He meets the young woman Kelly who shows up at one of his public readings, and he tries to explain her part.
“Your role is one of the great traditions of not only American storytelling but Western storytelling as a whole. The woman is the oracle through which men like me find redemption and self-correction. You’re the mirror in which I am able to see myself for who I really am and, in doing so, correct the flaws that have been plaguing me from my earliest days.”
“Fuck you,” she says. Each word is an anvil slammed across my spine.
Our author also finds time to express his views on our world.
“One of the truths we often overlook is that we are all hurtling on a rocky raft through the void, taking the tour of the cosmos at 67,000 miles per hour, every second of every day, and yet we still find time to stop and talk over bridges in the late hours of the night and maybe reach out and touch somebody’s hand.”
This is a thought I on occasion have. 67,000 miles per hour.
I found this bold daring story to be deeply affecting. It is a lively and spirited and, yes, an audacious performance.
Grade: A
Tony's Book World 
Posted by Janakay | YouMightAsWellRead on January 3, 2022 at 5:35 PM
Hi Tony! As it just so happens this is a recent addition to my pile (since the pile is of Everest proportions, it make take me a decade to get to it). I hadn’t read any reviews, so it wasn’t on my radar, so to speak, but a very helpful clerk at the local indy bookstore urged it on me. She didn’t use your word “audacious;” she just said it was extremely good! The quotes you’ve selected confirm this!
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Posted by Anokatony on January 3, 2022 at 5:49 PM
Hi Janakay,
Wow, that bookstore clerk has good taste!
On a totally unrelated subject, have you seen this article in the New Yorker about ‘The Case Against the Trauma Plot’? I found it quite insightful. Here is a link to it:
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2022/01/03/the-case-against-the-trauma-plot
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Posted by Janakay | YouMightAsWellRead on January 3, 2022 at 6:12 PM
Tony: thanks for the link! I did see the article, meant to read it (are you sensing a theme here?) & forgot! Thanks for your reminder, as it did indeed look interesting. The nice bookstore clerk did have great taste, as well as remarkable salesmanship ability (not that it takes much effort with me), as she also talked me into a novel by Louise Erdrich, a writer whom I’ve been avoiding (the novel, The Sentence, was definitely worth reading). This is a big reason I love indy bookstores; the employees frequently have great recommendations and love books. I’ve been delighted to discover two indys reasonably close to my new home; one is tiny but one is actually a pretty good size, with lots of browsing stock.
What are you reading these days? Do you participate in any of the many challenges floating around these days on the book blogs?
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Posted by Anokatony on January 3, 2022 at 6:31 PM
I do participate in reading challenges but only if a book I was going to read anyhow qualifies.
Louise Erdrich is a writer from the state I live in now, Minnesota, so I discovered her with her very first fiction ‘Love Medicine’. I have read a fair number of her works, and I now seem to have the attitude, “Been there, done that”. But I am still considering whether or not I will read ‘The Sentence’,
I suppose another name for the trauma plot would be the victim plot, and I do think there are too many novels where the main character is damaged due to some previous occurrence or treatment. Thus the main character is not a fully functioning person.
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Posted by Janakay | YouMightAsWellRead on January 3, 2022 at 6:40 PM
I know what you mean about “been there, done that,” as I have a few writers I’d put in that category. Erdrich is such a very big deal now; as usual, I’m behind the curve on reading her. I did like The Sentence, particularly the first part but thought it rambled a bit towards the last half. I will probably read another Erdrich novel or two, but am in no rush to do so.
Do think that the prevalence of the victim/trauma plot may be accounted for by its presence in debut novels? I’m speaking off the top of my head, but it seems to me that every writer goes through a stage of “sensitive young thing misunderstood/mistreated by the world;” being a writer, he or so does this in print!
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Posted by Anokatony on January 3, 2022 at 7:59 PM
I see your point about debut novels, but one debut novel I read last year, ‘Mrs March’ by Virginia Feito, sure didn’t have a trauma plot and I think it was better because it didn’t. Thanks.
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Posted by Lisa Hill on January 4, 2022 at 3:21 AM
“The prevalence of the victim/trauma plot may be accounted for by its presence in debut novels?”
Yes, and I have wearied of it lately. Many people of course do have something to complain about, but some of the narcissistic plotlines of books I choose *not* to read, seem to be whining about nothing much, just the ordinary slings and arrows…
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Posted by Anokatony on January 4, 2022 at 6:37 AM
“Slings and Arrows of outrageous fortune”
That was an excellent use of a William Shakespeare quote from Hamlet which does apply in this trauma plot case.
Shakespeare’s full quote from Hamlet’s soliloquy is:
“Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them?”
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