>>REVIEW
5 MINUTES AND 42 SECONDS
T.J. Williams
Amistad Publishers, 242 pp.
I’m rich bitch!
This epigraph to 5 Minutes and 42 Seconds sets the stage for a gritty story of impossible dreams, unrealistic expectations, love, drugs, loyalty and self-preservation.
Imagine a scene straight out of your typical mainstream hip-hop video. Fashad Douglass is a suave smooth-talking "nigga" who moved his way out of the projects of Detroit into a perfectly-groomed white suburb. Read Desperate Housewives’ Wisteria Lane: "a perfect house, in a perfect neighborhood, on a well-paved street with mansions to either side." But Fashad didn’t make his millions from his fictitious recording studio or car dealership – his success is based on the fine art of drug dealing, or "slanging," to use the vernacular.
5 Minutes and 42 Seconds is based on the premise that when the trumpet sounds, Fashad’s people will perform the much-practiced drill to flush the coke and hide a suitcase full of money. Fashad’s wife, daughter and once-loyal followers, however, have their own plans. Then there’s Xander, a gay hairstylist who falls in love with Fashad, who is on the "down low" and refuses to admit that he, too, is gay. It’s this element of confused sexual identity and denial that sets this story apart from your typical gangster text.
The novel is told from various characters’ points of view. Interestingly, Fashad isn’t given the power of narration. So, what we know of him is filtered through the words and thoughts of those whose lives he touches – his wife Cameisha; his daughter Dream; Smokey, a would-be rapper and victim of Fashad’s sexual abuse; and Xander, his most recent lover.
These characters chronicle their struggles and dreams of living a different reality. Although Cameisha has the perfect house she’s always wanted, it doesn’t convert into a home. She struggles in her role as wife and mother, finally giving in to her subservient position. Cameisha unrealistically compares her life to that of make-believe soap operas – her role model is the fictional Erica Kane (Susan Lucci’s long-time character on All My Children), whom she will, of course, never successfully emulate. Dream thinks of disappearing and being taken care of by a man. Smokey struggles with issues of bi-racial identity and talks of going to New York to become a rapper. He espouses the survival-of-the-fittest mentality to justify his actions.
While tenuous and verging on stereotypical, the novel does have an element of social commentary on the young black experience. Smokey’s unrealistic dreams represent the reality of having no options: "It’s gotten so bad these days that these young kids don’t even think about being nothing else besides a rapper or a basketball player. When they little bubbles burst they got to turn to slanging. It’s like if they can’t rap, or play ball, then slanging is the only way for them to be something more than the broke-down good-for-nothing niggas that they are."
The dialogue can be tedious at times. And the juxtaposition of black English versus standard English is not always maintained. However, the interlocking stories engage the reader as he or she continually discovers new character relationships. The book cover blurb makes 5 Minutes and 42 Seconds sound like a plot straight out of the TV sensation 24. It reads: "Her house is full of drugs, the feds are coming, and she has 5 minutes and 42 seconds." While not nearly as captivating as 24, the novel succeeds in reading as a thriller: what will happen when the trumpet sounds?
T. J. Williams is an edgy and emerging young voice well worth the read. |
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