These similarities include a sizable advance, the use of a sensitivity reader and a robust promotional effort by the publisher. shares some surface-level similarities with controversial books written by white authors about people of color, addressing subjects that disproportionately affect and traumatize people of color. If America is a house on fire, A Good Neighborhood is mostly concerned with exiting quietly, in a single-file line. Here, in this good neighborhood, it is not a tragedy that violence happens to black men, but rather, that it can happen to one of the good ones. But when a story is presented as art and activism, it becomes the reader’s responsibility to take the novel at its repetitive word. I’ve seen “Pretty Woman” nine times, minimum. Is it possible to enjoy a work of art with bad politics? Absolutely. It provides the same frustration one feels at Thanksgiving, when your self-described open-minded aunt won’t shut up about the beautiful gay couple she waves to at the gym. a pitch-perfect example of how literary endeavors of allyship - not to be confused with indictments of systemic oppression - can limit a novel’s understanding of human behavior. This binary may make sense in the comforting world of A Good Neighborhood but it reveals little about the world we live in, where good intentions often nourish white supremacy, the way sugar feeds yeast. Racism is depicted much like death or pregnancy, in that it is an all-or-nothing, binary state of being. Fowler’s portrayal of white supremacy is similarly hampered. If you want to know how to feel about these characters, the novel will tell you.

In the same way that activism cannot be sold for $26, black characters cannot be bought when they lack depth and accessibility.

Books by therese anne fowler