Recently my favorite cousin pulled my ear about a novel she was thinking about reading. Because I trust her opinion about these types of things, I was immediately interested and when she gave me a synopsis of the story, I was sold. The novel was 'Perfect Peace' by Daniel Black. I googled the author and guess what? It and turns out, I'd read one of his previous books(They Tell Me of a Home) and I hated it. I decided not to let that discourage me though. I mean, I was very enthusiastic about the subject matter so I figured it had to be good. Boy was I wrong.
So, If you are interested in actually reading this book, you should probably stop reading now because I fear that in my detail about why this novel just doesn't work, I may inadvertently give away some of the story. I would hate to spoil anything for you.
Let's start by discussing what this story is about! 'Perfect Peace' is a set in the 1940's in a rural black community and explores what happens when a boy is raised as a girl, then abruptly told the truth. When the novel opens, we find the matriarch in the middle of giving birth to her seventh child that she is sure will finally be a girl. Of course she is wrong and she has another boy. All of a sudden, this woman has the bright idea of making her boy a girl and this is where things start to fall apart. This should have been a terribly interesting story due to the subject matter and in more capable hands, it could have been. Unfortunately Mr. Black was ill equipped to do this story justice.
There were a few problems I had with this novel but one of the biggest problems is the hypothesis that Mr. Black sets up as you read. When I finally finished, one thing I took from this book is that if you allow a child to 'act like a girl' they will become gay and I don't feel comfortable with this idea at all. I want to first of all say that I do not believe that there is any kind of formula that can be put together(or avoided) that will make a child attracted to the same sex. For every person in the world that is same sex attracted, there is also a life full of experiences that has brought them to that point. I believe everyone is different so there is no one way that people get anywhere. I feel Mr. Black's idea that a person's sexuality can be socialized does not take into account the biology of a person. We are supposed to believe that just because his mother told him that he was a girl, his biology followed suite. If this were true, then I would argue that I should not be gay. I was socialized as a boy but I never had any sexual feelings toward girls! Again, I am not saying that my life experience is the way it is for everyone but I do believe that Mr. Black has failed to recognize the biology of sex in his telling of this story.
Another issue I have with this novel is that Mr. Black is just not a very good story teller. His writing is all over the place and I really feel like he tried to stuff a few different stories in this one novel. The story of Perfect was enough to carry this whole book and all the other fluff just made the story too convoluted and difficult to follow. I think the biggest violation of this for me would be the story of Mister. I assume that Mr. Black introduced the romance between Mister and Johnny Ray in order to show another point of view in regards to sexuality but again, it was just not handled appropriately. After all is said and done, I just felt like the story was never fully fleshed out and ultimately just another distraction from the real story. This continues to happen throughout this novel which left me very frustrated.
All in all, I have to say this book was awful. And I mean no disrespect to Mr. Black! The fact that he's actually published in an accomplishment in itself and something he should be proud of but I cannot look past the issues I find with this work. If anything, I blame his editor, or or those of us who read this and did not call him on these issues. I think it's our duty to continue to push artist to raise the bar and call them to task when they don't. So here is my push to Mr. Daniel Black.
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