"Though the death took many forms, though people died early in many different ways, the death itself was very simple and the cause was simple, too: as simple as a plague: the kids had been told that they weren't worth shit and everything they saw around them proved it."
"They were so free that they believed in nothing; and didn't realize that this illusion was their only truth and that they were doing exactly as they had been told."
Nearly half a century later, "If Beale Street Could Talk" still feels as relevant and revealing to the marginalized experience as it did when it was written. The incomparable James Baldwin writes in a fury, with effortless and occasional beauty ("We moved in a silence which was music from everywhere."), lending an intentional, frantic quality to the pacing of what was one of his least-well-received books.
"The poor are always crossing the Sahara. And the lawyers and bondsmen and all that crowd circle around the poor, exactly like vultures."
"Something travels from him to me, it is love and courage. Yes. Yes. We are going to make it, somehow. Somehow. I stand, and smile, and raise my fist. He turns into the inferno. I walk toward the Sahara."
Despite the brief length of the novel, the gut-wrenching pursuit of love by Fonny and Tish against all obstacles is powerfully emotional. While the open-ended conclusion may lead to frustration for some readers, Baldwin's apparent message is that while hope is alive, all is not lost.
"They looked at us as though we were zebras -- and, you know, some people like zebras and some people don't. But nobody ever asks the zebra."
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