T. Geronimo Johnson

Although born and raised in New Orleans there is more Ferlinghetti than Faulkner in T. Geronimo Johnson’s satirical novel, Welcome to Braggsville. Warning, this is not a book for readers who are used to being spoon-fed content and answers. There is plenty of content to be had but you will need to find the answers on your own.

The pace and style of the story changes almost by the minute, frenetic as a beat poet one page, measured and reflective the next. Much of it is reminiscent of show more all-night conversations I had in college, wandering and disjointed in places but oh-so relevant and self-assured. But that stands to reason, seeing as the main characters are students at UC Berkeley. You don’t get any more relevant and self-assured than a Cal student. Trust me on this.

Here’s the story: Four Cal students from various walks of life decide that, for a history class project, they will stage a reenactment. These self-titled ‘four little Indians’ would go to Braggsville, Georgia, a town that annually hosts a Civil War reenactment, and stage their own reenactment of a lynching. Needless to say, things don’t go as expected and their plans go awry faster than you can say ‘media shitstorm’.

To me, this is less a story than a set-up for a discussion in my daughter’s multi-cultural psychology class. Every action by every participant is questioned. Did you think this was a good idea? Do you think it was funny? Are you trying to make us look bad? More than anything, the book is a mirror that reflects the absurdity in all of us. Left-leaning liberal college students fare no better than the white Braggsville residents or the black residents in The Gully.

There is more that I want to say about this book but I think it will best be offered in the context of a discussion. Every reader will form his or her own conclusions and I look forward to finding out if mine sound as whacky to others as they do to me.

FYI: On a 5-point scale I assign stars based on my assessment of what the book needs in the way of improvements:
• 5 Stars – Nothing at all. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.
• 4 Stars – It could stand for a few tweaks here and there but it’s pretty good as it is.
• 3 Stars – A solid C grade. Some serious rewriting would be needed in order for this book to be considered great or memorable.
• 2 Stars – This book needs a lot of work. A good start would be to change the plot, the character development, the writing style and the ending.
• 1 Star - The only thing that would improve this book is a good bonfire. show less

T. Geronimo Johnson has written a modern epic that is "Homeric" in both its scope and theme. Johnson's stunning debut novel boasts a warrior hero named Achilles Conroy who has just returned from the war in Afghanistan, a conflict that has obviously left him scarred emotionally and mentally. His younger brother, Troy (more Homer), fought in the same US Army unit with Achilles, and has returned a decorated 'hero' by virtue of a daring, if foolhardy, rescue of a wounded comrade from a show more minefield. Achilles was there too, but only to protect his more impulsive sibling. Although equally brave, he received no medals.

The Conroy brothers return to their home in western Maryland just in time for the funeral of their father, killed in an automobile accident. Achilles and Troy are black; their adoptive parents are white. Immediately after the funeral, their mother presents them both with blue envelopes containing information about their birth parents. Achilles refuses to open his, but Troy takes his and disappears. Ever his brother's protector, Achilles goes looking for Troy, beginning a lengthy odyssey which takes him to New Orleans, where he stays with Wages, his former squad leader, and meets Ines, a wealthy, aristocratic woman who ministers to the homeless and drug addicts of the Big Easy. Ines looks white, but Achilles learns she is black, a confusing conundrum for him, since he has been trying to nail down his own racial identity all his life. While looking for Troy, Achilles is duped, beaten and robbed. His search for Troy then takes him to Atlanta just as Hurricane Katrina is bearing down on the Gulf Coast. More dangerous escapades in Atlanta, where he encounters dark drug lords, junkies addicted to and dying from "crunch." He visits morgues and tenements. Ines joins him in Atlanta, but then they must go back to New Orleans, where they see firsthand the awful destruction from the storm, and wade into the mess to try to help the unfortunate poor who were abandoned by the authorities to sink or swim. Like Homer's Odysseus, Johnson's Achilles takes the long way home and in the course of his journey, the reader gets an often disturbing look into the darker side of combat-damaged soldiers. There are several scenes of graphic cruelty, violence and sex that are not for the faint of heart. The fact is, however, such scenes are necessary if one really wants to understand what war does to young men, how it can change them, and permanently damage them.

As far as the military experience is concerned - the camaraderie, the language, the intensity - Johnson has somehow managed to get it right, and I mean dead-center right. There is no mention in the author's bio about military service, so I have to assume the guy has just done his homework. The language, the sexual fantasies and allusions are all there - too authentic and graphic to quote here. But he also tells of the closeness, along with promises they make -

"... the promise to stay in touch, start a Myspace page, have an annual reunion. Achilles knew the desperate promises wouldn't hold ..."

Johnson also knows that having survived the crucible of combat can sometimes make life more precious than anything. When, at a funeral, people speak of going to 'a better place.'

"... no one said it to his face, as if they knew Achilles wasn't buying. Once you were shot at, there was no better place to be than alive."

There is much here about black and white, about racism, about cultural identity and how skin color and its varying hues and darknesses can make a difference. But in the end this is an examination of what it means to be a human being, and how environment, parentage and outside influences (especially violent ones like war, murder and natural disasters) can shape and mold a person, whether it be for good or bad.

If there are any flaws to be found in Johnson's modern version of the Odyssey, it is perhaps that the denouement goes on a bit too long. But I could be wrong in this. Because, considering all that Achilles has been through, the novel's final line is nothing short of perfect: "God, to be alive." show less

A kid from the Deep South goes off to attend Berkeley, where he happens to mention to some of his friends the annual Civil War re-enactment that takes place in his home town. The friends are appalled, and one of them comes up with the idea of showing up at the event and staging a "performative intervention": a re-enactment of the lynching of an escaped slave, intended as a form of protest. This... does not go well.

This is a book I find myself with hard-to-pin-down mixed feelings about. At show more various points during the novel, I found myself thinking that the social commentary was a little too obvious, or a little too hard to interpret clearly, or nicely nuanced in a way that provides a lot to chew on but very few pat answers. (I suppose it's entirely possible that it is, in fact, all three.) I also thought the was writing sometimes clever and evocative, but sometimes too clever, too obscure, too overdone. In the end, I don't know if I enjoyed reading it (in whatever sense "enjoyed" is even the appropriate word for a story like this), or that I was entirely satisfied with it. But I do feel glad to have read it, I think. show less

Welcome to Braggsville by T. Geronimo Johnson is not an easy book to read. No book that seeks to take an honest look at racism in America is easy to read. There is always so much hurt and pain, even when it is packaged with as much satire and humor as The Confederacy of Dunces. For me, though, the real difficulty was with the prose. I set it aside four times, struggling with the prose. I began to wonder if I was too old for the book. The prose is like jazz, scatting wildly through stream of show more consciousness narratives to academic goo-goo and all over the place. I lost myself in the text and lost my place time and again. And yet…

The prose is beautiful and Johnson has so much to say that is important and worthy. So, even if it is a struggle, it is worth it. And perhaps my struggle is caused as much by my head cold that makes my eyes ache and tear as it is by the wildness of the prose. After all, sometimes the words and the ideas just take my breath away.

This is the story of D’Aron or Daron Davenport of Braggsville, GA, pop. 712. He is not at home in Braggsville and escapes to Berzerkley, Oakland because, as he wrote in his application essay, “I like UC Berkeley because the only way I could get farther from home is to learn how to swim.” At Berkeley he forms a tight-knit bond with three other students, Luis Chang who hopes to be the Malaysian Lenny Bruce Lee, Candice who clings to her rumored Native American ancestry to overcome her IA whiteness, and Charlie, a black should-be athlete from Chicago. They get each other and their bonds grow ever tighter as they move through their freshman into their sophomore year.

The trouble began when D’aron’s American History X, Y, Z class takes up the subject of reenactments and he mentions that his hometown does one every year. Candice suggests they do a reenactment, too, one that would rebut the honoring our heritage mask of white supremacy. They decide to go there for Spring Break and in a “performative intervention” play the role of slaves complete with reenacting a lynching. Things go horribly wrong and a national scandal erupts complete with protesters and counter-protesters and national media camped out in front of the Davenport home.

See the rest of the review here
https://tonstantweaderreviews.wordpress.com/2016/02/12/welcome-to-braggsville-by... show less