The Beautiful Struggle: A Father, Two Sons, and an Unlikely Road to Manhood

This a a beautifully written, poetic, evocative story of a young black man growing up in Baltimore. His father is a huge presence- a scholar, ex-Black Panther, ex- marine, but the dedication is to his mother. Perhaps the most powerful lesson is the incredible struggle it is to grow up a young black male when the whole white world of the US seems against you and the world of your peers is not a sanctuary, but another battlefield. This book dovetailed with the other one I am reading at the same time- The Cooking Gene. Both are about the struggle of African Americans for a legacy and heritage that is proud and laudable, something other than slavery. A moving testament to Coates. I wish I were still teaching so I could have my classes read show more this book and understand the truth of how the United States has treated both African Americans and Native Americans so deplorably. We will never be civilized until this is taught in school and we face the ugly fact of what inhuman acts have been done, and continue to be done,i n the name of progress and manifest destiny. show less

It's stunning to discover this memoir after all the justifiable hype about "Between the World And Me", his second book, an aspirational long-note-left-on-the-nightstand to Coates' son. This earlier book tells the saga of his unusual family life in the home of his father Big Bill Coates, mother Linda, and his siblings of three more mothers. Big Bill himself is worthy of an entire biography, but the focus is on his raising of his two elder sons, Bill and Ta-Nehisi. Their Baltimore home is chock full of black history and culture in the form of a black press and book distribution service established by Bill, a former Black Panther Party leader.

The boys are pushed by their parents to rise above the beefs and violence of their Baltimore show more neighborhood, but the deal is that at 18, each is a man on his own. Bill the son struggles mightily against the raging river of the streets and mostly succeeds, and with the book's ending he is hanging on at Howard University, where Bill the father was employed for years to send his two daughters and Bill to "Mecca" for free.

Ta-Nehisi is a nerd who can't dance, gets chosen last or not at all for basketball, and uses all his skills to avoid beatdowns. He is so restless that he is unable to focus on anything in school, where he slides into an exam high school. His magnetic attraction to the djimbe drum pulls him into a thriving pro-African culture within the black community. Yet through his own stubbornness that seems to rise only when he is on the edge of failure, Ta-Nehisi survives where many of his neighborhood friends do not. In fact, he thrives and rises to become a most talented writer and keenest observer of the era of Crack that took so many away, by death and incarceration. show less

Despite including some of my favorite elements of storytelling, such as poetic phrasing and non-linear histories, this memoir was difficult for me to truly connect with. Coates offers an illuminating portrait of what it was like to grow up as a Black boy in 80s Baltimore and in a family so conscious of the struggle but not immune to its traps, but his writing sometimes meanders, making it hard to follow the progression of the narrative. That being said, I still think some important insights can be gleaned from this memoir, and I feel more prepared to read Between the World and Me having read this earlier book.

Ta-Nehisi Coates came up in Baltimore, a middle son of a father who had seven children by four women. A Beautiful Struggle is the lyrical, poetic story of Coates’ parents’ struggle to imbue their children with the skills and education needed to master their often unfriendly environment.

Walter Moseley called Coates the James Joyce of the hip-hop generation and before starting the book, I questioned this assessment as perhaps overblown. As I read the book, however, I came to fully agree. Coates has an amazing facility with language, creating vivid visuals utilizing an interplay of rap inspired prose.

Having lived in DC and Maryland during the years Coates was growing up in Baltimore and aspiring to Howard University, I connected all show more the more with Coates’ memoir. But, even those readers not familiar with the world Coates inhabited will find The Beautiful Struggle a beautiful read. Sorry, I couldn’t resist . . . show less

I just finished [The Beautiful Struggle] by Ta-Nehisi Coates, which I have mixed feelings about. More than anything, it's about Coates' father, and yet I don't feel like I know him at all for reading about his life. The distance between reader and writer may reflect the distance between the inner lives of father and son - love and respect don't require full disclosure on anyone's part. Still, this is a book crammed with personalities, with lives long and short, and yet few - if any- really flower on the page. Even Coates seems a mystery to himself as he describes his past. Perhaps that's his tendency toward checking out, toward dreaming, given prose form? Or, equally, perhaps it's just me.

The book's very much about fathers, sons, show more brothers, friends - it's about manhood, and masculinity, and carving meaning and identity for yourself in a world that will rip it from you as fast as it can. And while I understand the need, the drive for the space and ritual of manhood that acts as this book's center stage, I missed the women. More than missed them, I wondered who they were, and how their lives looked, living and growing up and trying to survive - even flourish - in West Baltimore. show less

This is one of those books that I picked based on a desire to read new authors and expand my reading list, and I was very glad to have chosen this title. It's a memoir about growing up in a black community in Maryland and gives great insight into a different America than the one I experienced as a child. The activities, hobbies, expectations, and roles for members of the family were nothing like the ones I knew in my youth, but these served the same purpose for the individuals in that environment. For example, although Coates grew up in a home with a lot of books (just as I did), the titles were very different from the ones on my parents' shelves, and these helped to shape his ideas. There are some commonalities in growing up (learning show more to accept responsibility, figuring out how you want to earn a living, etc), but the context in which these events takes place can have a huge impact on our identities. The writing in this book is excellent and Coates uses some great metaphors to really draw the reader into his story. I really enjoyed this book and will be reading more of Coates work. show less

Adapted from the adult memoir by the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Water Dancer and 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 show more 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. show less