Tish and Fonny, the couple at the heart of the novel, have been inseparable since they were kids, growing up in 1970s New York. And “If Beale Street Could Talk” isn’t just a love story it’s Baldwin’s searing take on how racism can tear a family apart. But this isn’t the window from a second-story bedroom - it’s the glass panes of a prison’s visiting room. And one that I set down several times because of the weight, but it was well worth reading and the weight is based on truth, not sentimentality or falseness.James Baldwin’s “If Beale Street Could Talk” opens with a couple confessing their love, facing each other on opposite sides of a window. One that I did not really want to pick up because I knew the rough story line. Bahni Turpin's book narration also captures the strength of Tish and the tragedy of the situation well.
This is also the first book of his that I have read that has a female narrator (in the story) and that is done very well. I appreciate Baldwin's skill with his other fiction, but I don't really like the characters. This is the third fiction book of Baldwin's I have read and the first that I have really liked. The issues of poverty, police misconduct, the broad powers of the district attorney's office on how to charge and how to bundle charges, the violence of the prisons themselves, the focus on retributive and not restorative justice, the enormous financial and emotional costs placed not just on the accused, but the extended networks and family of the accused and more are all here. I did not do it intentionally, but If Beale Street Could Talk is a perfect fictional followup to that non-fiction book on the criminal justice system. I read this soon after finishing the book Rethinking Incarceration. In a love story that evokes the blues, where passion and sadness are inevitably intertwined, Baldwin has created two characters so alive and profoundly realized that they are unforgettably ingrained in the American psyche. Their families set out to clear his name, and as they face an uncertain future, the young lovers experience a kaleidoscope of emotions-affection, despair, and hope. Tish and Fonny have pledged to get married, but Fonny is falsely accused of a terrible crime and is imprisoned. Told through the eyes of Tish, a nineteen-year-old girl in love with Fonny, a young sculptor who is the father of her child, Baldwin’s story mixes the sweet and the sad. In this honest and stunning novel, James Baldwin has given America a moving story of love in the face of injustice.
"One of the best books Baldwin has ever written-perhaps the best of all.” - The Philadelphia Inquirer From one of the most important writers of the twentieth century comes a stunning love story about a young Black woman whose life is torn apart when her lover is wrongly accused of a crime-"a moving, painful story, so vividly human and so obviously based on reality that it strikes us as timeless” ( The New York Times Book Review ).
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