Hold Love Strong

In June of 2009, I grabbed a book off the library shelf. It was the first effort by a new author and it looked interesting.

Oh. My. God.

“Interesting” does not do this book justice. Even now, nine months and many books/short stories later, I still say it is one of the best books I have ever read. That’s my opinion, anyway.

I wrote about Hold Love Strong not long after finishing its last page. I liked it so much, I bought a copy for myself specifically so I could pass it around to all of my reading friends.

Shannon, my oldest daughter, loved it and was moved by it like I was. Amy, my youngest daughter, liked it, but not as much as Shannon and I. My mother in law, if I remember correctly, tried reading it, but couldn’t get into it. I’m not sure if I gave my mom the chance to read the book, and Hubby hasn’t tried. (He forgot all about it while it was making its rounds.)

Now, please keep in mind, different people like to read different things. You know, different strokes for different folks and all that. Fiction books are wholly or in part from a writer’s imagination. Fiction, as explained in more detail here, is broken down into categories, the two biggest being commercial fiction and literary fiction. The easiest way to describe the difference, without sounding like an elitist, is that commercial fiction is usually popular for the story it tells whereas literary fiction is more about how a story is told. Not that the stories aren’t good, mind you, they’re just told differently.

Hold Love Strong is literary fiction. It’s both a great story and, in my opinion, it is told exceedingly well. Reviewers have used words like poignant, lyrical, evocative, haunting, gritty, honest. It’s all that and more. The Book Lady does a pretty good job describing the book here.

What impressed me most was how honestly the book was written, how well it pulled me in and showed me the realities of life in the projects. And not once did it employ Black English in a manner that would even slightly be considered patronizing, condescending or demeaning.

The non-use of Black English is only one of the reasons I found it so surprising that the author is young, white and male. That and the nonjudgmental nature of the book. I just HAD to learn more about the man behind this work that I think every white person in America should be made to read.

Shannon was surprised when I told her not only had I e-mailed the author, but that he’d responded to me like the next day.

Hey, Shan, guess what? He e-mailed me again!

Oddly enough, mere hours before receiving that e-mail, the book had popped into my consciousness. I’ve often wondered how it had done. That’s why I got an e-mail, which, in all fairness, was addressed as follows: “Dear Everyone I know (and folks whose email somehow ended up in my contact list).”

I obviously fall into the latter bunch. But still.

How many of you got an e-mail yesterday from your favorite, up-and-coming author?

The reason for the e-mail was to announce the March 16th paperback release of the book.

I know nothing about publishing. I have no idea why this book was not the most talked about book of 2009. I’m clueless as to why Oprah hasn’t made this one of “her” books.

Maybe it’ll be more popular in paperback. After all, hardbacks are pretty expensive. Lots of other books do well in hardback, but they’re usually by established authors.

If you like literary fiction even a little bit, buy this book.

If you know someone else who likes to read literary fiction even a little bit, buy this book.

Seriously, I think all literary fiction fans will agree, this is a book that deserves to be on the bestseller list.

Maybe I’m off my rocker (doubt it!). Maybe this book really is just not that good (it’s fabulous!).

If you have read it, PLEASE let me know what you think.

NOTE: The pictures you see here have absolutely nothing to do with the content of the post. I just find blogs without pics boring. Hopefully, the images were not too distracting…