Adapting nonfiction books for younger audiences, allowing these readers to experience fantastic writing and impactful stories at a younger age, has become a popular phenomenon in the nonfiction world. Ta-Nehisi Coates, best known for his nonfiction work Between the World and Me and his debut novel The Water Dancer, has now joined in on this trend with the adaptation of his 2008 memoir The Beautiful Struggle for consumption by a new generation of young adults.
Coates opens his memoir with both a map of Baltimore and a family tree, which help orient readers to the physical setting and familial context of his story. The patriarch of this family tree is Paul Coates: father to Ta-Nehisi and six other children, Vietnam veteran, and one-time member of the Black Panther party. After earning both a bachelor’s degree and a master’s degree, Paul worked formally in a local research center and spent his free time collecting, re-publishing, and selling rare, long-forgotten texts by Black writers.
Ta-Nehisi and his oldest brother, “Big Bill,” could not have been two more divergent offspring of this same father, although they each faced their own struggles coming of age. Bill had experience in the streets of the surrounding community, the streets he felt drawn to during a time when major events like the infiltration of crack were impacting the area. He ran with different crowds of youth than his brother, had his fair share of trouble and close calls, and eventually invested in a gun to carry daily for protection.
Ta-Nehisi, on the other hand, describes himself as “from the street but not of it,” which left him feeling like he did not quite fit in anywhere. He knew the dangers inherent in different areas of town, the importance of surrounding yourself with a “crew” rather than walking alone, yet he avoided certain crowds and when confronted he would not fight. He skipped classes or slept through them, struggled to focus and wasn’t invested in academics; yet, he put great effort into his unique interests. While his father wished he would spend more time out in the community, learning about the world around him, Ta-Nehisi would rather be inside reading comic books.
Despite his conflicting feelings about this larger-than-life figure, Coates felt thankful to have a father in his life, unlike so many of his peers. And over time, his father’s influence began to rub off on him. As he grew older, Coates found a growing interest in the texts his father promoted and published, which one cannot help but see as a profound influence on his own career and writing down the road.
At its core, The Beautiful Struggle is a tale of Coates’ own coming-of-age; the beauty and the pain he saw in the world around him in his formative years. However, there are many layers to this story. This memoir is a look inside what it is like to grow from a boy into a man, and more specifically what it was like for Coates to navigate this experience in the inner city of Baltimore. It is the journey of two brothers navigating quite different paths, although they are raised under the same roof in the same neighbourhood. And it is a tale of a father who was deeply invested in raising strong Black sons to continue his fight against racism, as well as the difficulties these sons found in forging a relationship with such a man.
An entirely worthwhile read for both the target audience of youth as well as the adults in their lives.
The Beautiful Struggle is available from Amazon, Book Depository, and other good book retailers, like your local bookstore, as of January 12th 2021. Many thanks to Random House/Delacorte Press for providing me with an advance copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions expressed here are entirely my own.
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Synopsis | Goodreads
Adapted from the adult memoir by the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Water Dancerand Between the World and Me, this father-son story explores how boys become men, and quite specifically, how Ta-Nehisi Coates became Ta-Nehisi Coates.
As a child, Ta-Nehisi Coates was seen by his father, Paul, as too sensitive and lacking focus. Paul Coates was a Vietnam vet who’d been part of the Black Panthers and was dedicated to reading and publishing the history of African civilization. When it came to his sons, he was committed to raising proud Black men equipped to deal with a racist society, during a turbulent period in the collapsing city of Baltimore where they lived.
Coates details with candor the challenges of dealing with his tough-love father, the influence of his mother, and the dynamics of his extended family, including his brother “Big Bill,” who was on a very different path than Ta-Nehisi. Coates also tells of his family struggles at school and with girls, making this a timely story to which many readers will relate.
