White Woman, Black Characters

The first thing that strikes me about Susan Straight's Take One Candle Light a Room: A Novel is that it's about (in part) Southern Californians. That in itself is nothing odd or unusual, but the fact that the people, lives, and locations she chooses to write about are not the typical–that's how this fact stands out. While I do read FX Antoine–the successful, exotic-looking, independent writer who lives in an impressive flat in LA when she's not touring exotic and little-known towns and attractions in other countries–as a too-ideal, possible fantasy of Straight's, the majority of characters in Take One Candle defy Hollywood's movie and magazine image of Southern Californians. We don't see Barbie and Ken, or sunglasses-bearing blondes cruising, top down, under rows of palms. No, instead we get poverty, slang, drugs, prostitution, and unglamorous violence.

I, a NorCal native, get to see a SoCal I'm largely unfamiliar with. I enjoy it.

Another surprising element to this novel, or to Straight, is the fact that she's a white woman. No, I don't think I'm racist, but how did a Californian white woman grow to experience and know the cultures, languages, people, and events that she writes about? I don't doubt that she writes what she knows, to an extent. We know, too, that she lives in Riverside, the city she was born in. She even claims to be able to see the hospital she was born in from her kitchen window. Location, I understand, but the culture she writes is fascinating, mostly because it is from an unexpected source. Part of that can be answered, no doubt, in some of the essays she's written on race. While I haven't read them, I came across them as I was researching her. Two of the ones she's published are titled, "Skin Deep: Black Women & White Women Write About Race" and "Race: An Anthology in the First Person." I may look for a copy of these before Straight comes and reads at school.

Take One Candle's plot was fantastic–perhaps too fantastic for me. There was a rich backstory, an exciting journey, and plenty of action.

There backstory contained a healthy degree of mystery and pain. It was romantic–to an extent–as revealed by FX Antoine, but we (the readers as well as FX) soon find out that all may not be as previously thought. While the late-book discovery that FX's ancestors may not be who she always thought they were is a big deal, I honestly cared very little about it.

The locations were many and quite varied, ranging from Europe to California's high desert. While this was interesting, much of it was pointless. All of FX's travels could have been absent from the story and it still would have functioned well. The journey FX and her father took to New Orleans was a major factor in the story. I'll admit that when I first cracked the book, I had no idea we would end up in Louisiana. As for the climax, "Katrina," we all expected it to be a big deal. But we all knew what happened, so we had that heads-up. Setting might have been my favorite element of the story. Even though it was a tad raw, it wasn't overly so. Those of you who read Let the Great World Spin got some more-than-typical grittiness. She captured these settings, fictional or not, well, and the world she built in LA had an almost film noir aura to it at times.

As for the action in the novel, most of it was indirectly seen. We didn't see Victor get shot, nor were we in the moment when FX's father killed Mr. McQuine. We still had plenty of action despite that, but I appreciate Straight not using the cheap tricks of gunfire and car chases to drive her novel. Instead, it was the drama and heavy situations that made us turn the pages. Good move, Straight.

Another thing I found different in this novel was the attention paid to banal details. In the books I usually read, there tends to be a reason we read what the protagonist is putting on, or why he or she is doing his or her hair a certain way. In this novel, we get it and it bugged me that there was no purpose. FX braids her hair? So, what? She changed into a white tank top originally bought for one of the guys? Cool. I don't want to generalize people, but perhaps since I'm a guy, I didn't care for these constant, pointless details.

I've lambasted enough. If you've read this far, you may think I hate the novel. I don't. I enjoyed it, actually. I'm glad we read something a bit easier for class. Sometimes assigned reading, although it may be leisure reading otherwise, tastes a bit like homework. This one was fun to read, and it makes me look forward to Straight's visit.

The vernacular used in the novel required a second or even third pass, sometimes, but I appreciate the authenticity of it. The story benefitted greatly from the true-to-life dialogue. The characters would have been so different in my mind if they were written "more better."

The depth to her story was good, too. I think I've read somewhere that some of her other novels might involve similar families or settings? Whether or not this is true, I could see the authentic backgrounds and histories in the people she created (or recreated).

The story, to me, was reminiscent of thrillers I've read, but it was performed with more class. It wasn't a story I was necessarily enveloped in, but I had fun with it, nonetheless. I wonder if Straight has been to New Orleans? What are her other ties to that place?

My last praise for Take One Candle is a fact I've mentioned before: Straight is white, writing about blacks. On the surface, this may not be credible, but she pulls it off successfully. This, more than anything, is encouraging. It's possible for me to produce something that catches people off guard, but in a way that works.

-Alexander Hirata