Everywhere You Don't Belong by Gabriel Bump

Everywhere You Don't Belong by Gabriel Bump

Published by Algonquin Books ISBN 978164370859

Trade paperback, $15.95, 272 pages

Gabriel Bump dedicates his thought-provoking debut novel Everywhere You Don't Belong to his Grandma and young Black men like Tamir Rice, Mike Brown, Travon Martin, among others. 

Set in the South Shore neighborhood of Chicago, teenage Claude lives with Grandma and her friend Paul. Grandma participated in the civil rights movement of the 1960s. Paul is gay and unlucky in love. Grandma gets Claude into a Catholic school on the other side of the tracks, but Claude is bullied at school because he is "bad at sports, no jokes, no rich parents, no excellent homework to steal and copy."

A few months into his tenure at Catholic school, his Grandma and the nuns had a disagreement about sexual abstinence (Grandma is against it), and Claude and Catholic school part ways. Grandma is quite a character, but she loves Claude.

Basketball was everything in Chicago at this time- the Bulls had Michael Jordan, Scottie Pippen, and Dennis Rodman, who were all on team that won multiple championships. Claude wasn't any good at basketball, but his best friend Jonah was a superstar. When Claude was badly beat up by Jonah's rival, Jonah's parents move him away, and Claude is left alone.

The South Side was also home to the Redbelters, who Grandma says thinks they are Black Panthers, but they recruit kids to sell drugs for them. When Claude and his friends are caught in the middle of a deadly riot between cops and the Redbelters, the neighborhood is being torn apart live on the nightly news.

Claude wants to escape and so he goes to college in Missouri to study journalism. His hopes of being his own person is hindered by his fellow students and teachers who once again want to define him by his race. When a young woman from home tracks him down, he has to decide where his future lies.

Everywhere You Don't Belong is a worthy addition to the best coming-of-age novels, from A Tree Grows in Brooklyn to The Catcher in the Rye to more current ones like Angie Thomas' The Hate U Give. Bump creates a character in Claude who comes alive on the page. Good authors put us in the shoes and minds of their characters, and Bump does that with great empathy and a little humor (Grandma and Paul provide that). I highly recommend Everywhere You Don't Belong, and I'm not alone. The New York Times chose it as one of their 100 Notable Books of 2020.

Thansk for Algonquin Books for putting me on Gabriel Bump's tour.

Friday 5ive- January 8, 2021

Welcome to the Friday 5ive, a weekly blog post featuring five things that caught my attention this week. I'm not going to include the ugly event at the Capitol this Wednesday, as I think that captured everyone's attention. Let's hope we can turn a page on January 20th.

1)  I get up at 6:30am and head to the laundry room in our apartment building twice a week. I'm usually the only one down there, so it's a good time to do laundry. When I got up this morning, I saw this beautiful sky over the East River, just as the sun was coming up. It was a very vivid sight to start the day.

2)  My friend from back home Barbara called me this week and cryptically asked if I was home. When I said I was, she said that I was going to get a delivery today, a surprise. A few hours later, an Instacart delivery person rang my door with all the ingredients to make Barbara's famous meatballs and sauce- along with Italian bread and salad. What a thoughtful, lovely gift! She sent me directions on how to make it, and it was the best meatballs and sauce I've ever made. We had it for two nights and put the rest in the freezer. Sometimes I just open the freezer to look wistfully at it. I love this idea, I hope it catches on.

3) I received my medal from my latest virtual bike ride. I have been riding the Ring of Kerry in Ireland, a 124.3 mile journey. I love that I get "postcards" along the way, describing interesting sights along the way. Next up, I'm riding St. Francis Way, a journey from Florence to Rome in Italy. 

4)  My husband and I starting watching Homeland on Hulu (originally on Showtime). Damian Lewis plays a Marine who is rescued after being missing and presumed dead for eight years and held prisoner by Al-Queda. His homecoming is difficult for his family, his fellow soldiers, and a CIA operative played by Clare Danes who has questions about what happened to him while in captivity. We're into season two, and the acting by Lewis, Danes and the great Mandy Patinkin, as Clares Danes' boss, is fantastic. 

5) I'm back in the groove with my reading. I read Mary Higgins Clark and Alafair Burke's latest collaboration, Piece of My Heart, while watching a New Year's Day Odd Couple marathon. The fast-paced novel quickly captured my full attention as I was drawn into the story of a young boy missing from a beach. It's one of a series of books about Laurie Moran, a producer of a true crime TV show (like 48 Hours or Dateline), but you don't to have had read any of the other books to understand this one. I couldn't put it down and it kept me guessing right up until the end.

Gabriel Bump's coming of age novel, Everywhere You Don't Belong was on the New York Times list of the Most Notable Books of 2020. He tells the story of Claude, a young Black boy growing up on the South Side of Chicago with his Grandma and her friend Paul. Good books put the reader into the mind and shoes of their character, and Bump does an amazing job at getting us to understand Claude's life. My full review publishes on Monday. Fans of Angie Thomas' The Hate U Give have their next read.

Julia Claiborne Johnson takes us to a 1938 dude ranch in Reno, Nevada where wealthy women stayed for  while they waited out their six week residency requirement to get a divorce in her delightful novel Better Luck Next Time. It's witty and had me laughing out loud more than once. 

Stay safe, socially distant, wash your hands, wear a mask, and get a vaccine when it's your turn and we'll make it through this.