Ratings22
Average rating3.9
15
Ratings22
Average rating3.9
From legendary playwright August Wilson comes the powerful, stunning dramatic bestseller that won him critical acclaim, including the Tony Award for Best Play and the Pulitzer Prize. Troy Maxson is a strong man, a hard man. He has had to be to survive. Troy Maxson has gone through life in an America where to be proud and black is to face pressures that could crush a man, body and soul. But the 1950s are yielding to the new spirit of liberation in the 1960s, a spirit that is changing the world Troy Maxson has learned to deal with the only way he can, a spirit that is making him a stranger, angry and afraid, in a world he never knew and to a wife and son he understands less and less. This is a modern classic, a book that deals with the impossibly difficult themes of race in America, set during the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 60s. Now an Academy Award-winning film directed by and starring Denzel Washington, along with Academy Award and Golden Globe winner Viola Davis.
Featured Series
9 primary booksThe Century Cycle is a 9-book series with 9 primary works first released in 1984 with contributions by August Wilson.
Reviews with the most likes.
I read this book in 8th grade, but decided to read it again because I forgot alot of stuff in it. But I do remember really enhoying this book because the book centers itself around such themes that made up a black america in the 1950's and 60's. The main character Troy Maxson is a middle aged man who has settled down with his wife and two sons, taking care of his care-free brother and his unsettling job as a garbage collector. His dream was once to be able to become a baseball player for the MLB but because of the racial discrimination that faced him, he never acheived that dream, and doesnt want the same to happen with his younger son Cory. At first, I was confused why a book like this would be called Fences, but if you read it, you see how August Wilson used dialogue written in the format of a play in able to put his perspective out there about the world, the colored man and the society that they try to survive in every day.
About when the first act ended, I thought, “Man, Troy is an argumentative sonofabitch.” He has to get the last word about everything! It's annoying, and you kind of hate him for it, and for the way he treats his wife and his son Cory. There's this really heartbreaking part where Cory asks why his father doesn't like him, and Troy just can't seem to get his head out of his own ass to admit he's afraid of Cory taking chances when Troy's own life didn't afford him those chances, and it'd be better to take the safe route instead of trying and failing. It's hard to watch him intentionally and inadvertently ruin his own life. Also, Rose is awesome, Justice for Rose!
I know a movie came out of this play a few years back, and now I want to see it.
TW: mother dies in childbirth (off-page)
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