‘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