In this short brainstorming session, I want to introduce an idea…
In our last post, we began to establish a setting for Lost Boy. Where, when, and under what circumstances will the novel take place? First, it will take place in a city in North Carolina (most likely a fictional city . . . as soon as I think of a name). Second, the time period is present day, and that is where the “circumstances” come in. What is happening in present day (insert city name here*), North Carolina that could affect the characters or the plot of the story? We looked at the black poverty of the area (the trailer park, the crime infested Shell station and the neighborhood around it), the corrupt justice system that creates career criminals, and the lack of fathers because of the corrupt justice system that creates career criminals (among other causes), which brings us to today’s topic.
The Moynihan Report, also known as The Negro Family: The Case For National Action, written in 1965 by Daniel Patrick Moynihan, an American sociologist, introduces the “pathology” of the black single mother household. Drawing back on the detrimental effects of slavery, he blames the broken familial structure of the black community for its non-advancement and continued poverty and increased criminal behavior. It goes on to say that the rise of black single mothers has contributed to the weakening of black men.
Obviously a lot of people had a problem with this report, but even today you still hear these kinds of stereotypes about black families and black women, and most of them are spoken by black people themselves! Black men who don’t date black women because they’re always “angry and bitter.” Black women who call black men “ain’t shit niggas.” Where does all this anger and malice come from?
The blame game is a slippery slope when trying to explain someone’s actions. Exploring these concepts in Lost Boy, let’s look at the black women characters and the ways they could contribute to the detrimental behavior of Gregory.
Leslie – Leslie is left to raise her two boys by herself after the tragic and sudden death of her husband. While Antonio, Sr.’s absence isn’t due to stereotypical reasons (avoiding responsibilities, death due to violence, prison, etc.), the broken Fields family still becomes a statistic. Antonio, Sr. dies at the most critical part in the boys lives. They are teenagers on the verge of manhood, and all of a sudden they don’t have a man to teach them anymore. All that’s left is Leslie and Grandma Stella.
Leslie has a tendency to coddle her sons, especially her youngest, Gregory. They’re her babies. It’s not on purpose, she just loves and cherishes her boys so much, she doesn’t want them to grow up. Where it starts to get detrimental is when she appeases, enables, or ignores poor behavior because she doesn’t know how to properly correct them, and any instruction or correction she may bring on the boys Stella will surely undermine because, well, she’s Grandma. Even if they try to bring in father figures, most boys reject men, who aren’t their fathers, coming into their lives and trying to tell them what to do.
Does this all add up to result Tony and Gregory’s problems in adulthood?
Or may Tammi and Jacquelyn are to blame.
Tammi and Jacqueline “Jacqui” White – This mother-daughter duo is probably the most stereotypical characters in the novel and the most damaging. They’re both selfish. They both use Gregory for everything he has (or everything he doesn’t have). Tammi cheats on him and gets pregnant with twins, which has got to be a stab at his ego. Jacqui’s husband doesn’t do shit, so now Gregory is playing husband to both Tammi and Jacqui, and he isn’t married to either of them.
So why does he stay? Does he feel like he deserves this kind of treatment, and if so, why? Because of his upbringing? Does he think he has to be responsible for them? Is he confused about what he should do because he didn’t have his father to teach him? The sad part is I don’t thing this question is ever truly answered in the novel. It’s human nature to want an explanation for everything, to have something to blame. But it’s hard to blame someone else for a decision YOU make.
And I, as the author, am not going to tell you anything. I’ll show you what the characters do, and you’ll have to figure out for yourself what the heck is up with them.
We’ll start with Tony in our next post.
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