Think of Saving Our Sons: Raising Black Children in a Turbulent
World as a very successful “crossover” book – a testimony bridging
seriously crafted nonfiction and popular concerns, joining readers both
erudite and everyday to heed a message important to all.
By writing Saving Our Sons, Marita Golden has produced a most
crucial book. To call it a “crossover” is not to minimize Golden’s
craft or effort. Nor is it to relegate it to some group of market-wise
books waiting for the next big wave. This book should appeal to a large
audience not because it hit the right target of “high” or “pop”
culture, but because, according to Golden, its focus is the center of
our shared experiences. Thus, Golden has added to her already
successful list of fictional and nonfictional works a book with a
different mission.
For readers used to Golden, this will come as a surprise. For
others, this may be the best and most effective introduction to the
author. It displays her compelling writer’s voice and reflects her
agenda as a Black woman.
There is nothing new about writers enjoying acclaim from literary
critics and praise from the popular culture for bridging the gap
between what one might call literary writing and genre writing.
Literary writing is considered the “high culture” of literature:
esoteric, small press novels, short fiction, poetry and creative
nonfiction from prestigious small presses or subdivisions of large
publishing. Genre writing – the “pop culture” of literature –
represents formula novels, novels that are bound for movie rights
before they are bound in hardcover, the
let-me-tell-you-about-my-deranged-childhood memoir, and myriad
non-fiction works ostensibly set on relieving America of its anxiety
over such pop-fodder as high-calorie diets, Capitol Hill scandals, how
O.J. got over, and how white America then got its revenge.
Of course, there are many other realms in which a writer may garner
praise. But in a culture where virtually all expression fails or
triumphs by way of the manner in which it is commodified, represented,
and consumed, writers are often positioned as literary successes or
popular successes.
Some writers make it in both worlds. They either write the crucial
“crossover” book, or, through careful promotion, have the book ferried
over from the banks of the literary to the shores of the popular. A
recent example of this was when Nobel Laureate Toni Morrison’s Son of
Solomon hit the best seller list after Oprah Winfrey told her
television audience it was a good book. In such a world, one wonders if
writers are writing because they want to be remembered within their
historical moment – made valid by advances, high book sales, and
talk-show hype – or if they are writing for the sake of writing with
their mission being the transformation of the reader.
In the face of this dichotomy stands Marita Golden, a writer who has
written books of fiction and nonfiction (Long Distance Life, A Woman’s
Place, Migrations of the Heart) that were well-received by writers and
literary critics alike. Because she writes clearly, cleanly, and with
unchecked candor about the African American woman’s experience in a
manner that speaks urgently and openly to those below the ivory tower
of the literati, she has enjoyed the additional following of many who
may have previously devoted most of their reading to popular literature.
