The kids are not all right

For more than a decade, Sapphire, the author of “Push,” put a sequel on hold.

“I put the ‘The Kid’ on the back burner,” she said in a recent telephone interview. “I hadn’t had a novel in 15 years, but I was not feeling outward pressure. I was in academia and writing poetry.”

Then “Precious,” a movie based on “Push,” went into development — and everything changed.

She candidly admits that the movie, released in 2009, was a market maker for the books.

“Push” tells the story (as does “Precious”) of a 16-year-old black woman in New York City in the mid-1980s. Precious, pregnant from a sexually abusive relationship with her father, is thrown into an alternative school with other pregnant women.

Inspired by their teacher, Precious and the other students keep journals, and Precious begins to pull herself out of her troubled life. She gives birth to Abdul, discovers she is HIV-positive and joins a support group with others who share the problems of sexual abuse and HIV.

Although the book and movie can be seen as uplifting and hopeful, it is without question a disturbing look at a young woman’s life.

Well hold on to your reading lights: “The Kid” opens with Abdul, now 9, fresh from his mother’s funeral and being shipped from foster home to foster home, each more brutal than the last.

Unlike “Push,” in which the teachers and adults outside the immediate family are often seen as heroes, Abdul — who calls himself J.J. — faces sexual abuse from those chosen to help him, including priests at the St. Ailanthus School for Boys.

But like his mom, homeless and outcast, Abdul shows unflinching survival skills and a burning desire to succeed in a creative expression of his life. He joins a dance group and flourishes, but that’s as good as it gets when it comes to uplifting events. 

Sapphire said “The Kid” represents a crossroads for her.

As a writer who has her roots in performance poetry, she saw herself as a poet who had written a novel.

Elements of poetry, especially imagery, brevity and dreamlike sequences, abound in “The Kid.” Parts of the novel can leave you breathless, like a slam poetry reading.

“Poetry is one of the purist forms of art, and it can only inform other forms of writing,” Sapphire said. 

She said that 10 to 15 years ago performance and slam poetry were flowering in urban areas: “Poetry was coming from the streets.”

The streets and sounds of New York City and the backdrop of creative dance fill Abdul’s life, as the narrative takes him from reality into dreams, a literary technique that Sapphire uses often in the book.

Faced with a world as bleak as one could imagine Abdul responds in a physical way.

“He is different than a female character. He talks loud to himself and others as he tries to establish his own self. He’s a go-getter and his response to the world is physical.”

Sapphire said when she was writing the book, “I would ask myself what would I do in this situation? I would cry, and I would have Abdul do the opposite.”

Sapphire admits this fictional coming-of-age story is a specific character study, but she said it represents the sociological and economic world many African-Americans live in.

“Conditions create characters,” she said. “Doors are being closed to African-Americans entering the American middle class.

“The problems of drug addiction, AIDS/HIV, loss of grandmothers — the family is falling apart.

“It’s happening now. Black boys are unable to be adopted. No one wants them, and America is not functioning for certain segments of society.”

In particular, she said she wanted to write about the impact that AIDS has had on African-American culture. She said that is “the backstory of the creation of Abdul.” 

As our conversation ended, she said she was holding a front-page story from that day’s New York Times detailing sexual abuse by priests.

A word of caution: This book is not for everyone. There is strong sexual language and disturbing scenes of physical and sexual violence, and the final outcome is ambiguous, which will likely be the thing that most bothers readers looking for the redemptive qualities of “Push.”

Abdul is a haunted hero. As Sapphire writes in a chapter-heading quote from “Crime and Punishment”: “He recalled it more vividly in his dream than he had done in memory.”

Sapphire
Talk and book signing
7 p.m. Tuesday, Aug. 9
Schuler Books & Music
2820 Towne Center Blvd.,
Lansing
Free
(517) 316-7495
www.schulerbooks.com