If Beale Street Could Talk

Short Thoughts: I read this soon after finishing the book Rethinking Incarceration. I did not do it intentionally, but If Beale Street Could Talk is a perfect fictional followup to that non-fiction book on the criminal justice system. The issues of poverty, police misconduct, the broad powers of the district attorney's office on how to charge and how to bundle charges, the violence of the prisons themselves, the focus on retributive and not restorative justice, the enormous financial and emotional costs placed not just on the accused, but the extended networks and family of the accused and more are all here.

Baldwin is such an incredible writer. This is the third fiction book of Baldwin's I have read and the first that I have really liked. I appreciate Baldwin's skill with his other fiction, but I don't really like the characters. This is also the first book of his that I have read that has a female narrator and that is done very well.

This is a heavy story. One that I did not really want to pick up because I knew the rough story line. And one that I set down several times because of the weight, but it was well worth reading and the weight is based on truth, not sentimentality or falseness.

My longer thoughts are on my blog at http://bookwi.se/if-beale-street-could-talk/