Publisher's Synopsis
What is most important about our narrator, Ismael? Is it that he is the son of an unwed mother; is it that he and his mother are asked to leave their palatial home in Scarsdale, New York, at the insistence of his father's recent wife in anticipation of their first child; is it that his father then assures Ismael's and his mother's living through abundantly funded irrevocable trusts; is it that Ishmael enlists in the United States Navy in lieu of attending an Ivy League University for which he is well qualified, hoping to ultimately secure the GI Bill which will allow him to go to college without depending on his irrevocable trust; is it that as a recruit suffering Naval bootcamp he is befriended by a skinny, uncoordinated, bungling, unmitigated screwup named Squeaky who he and another impromptu friend protect from the rest of their Company's attempts at retribution for Squeaky's continually causing them extra duty; is it that Ismael helplessly witnesses the constant and cruel hazing of Squeaky by their Company Commander, the Navy's version of a drill sergeant, one Second Class Seabee Alexandro Slack who wishes to rid his Company of this detriment in competition for regimental flags; is it that Ismael falls in love with a Jewish girl he has played with since kindergarten as she shows an interest during their senior year of being much more than buddies; or is it the fact that Ismael's mother is black?
It is indeed superficial thinking that overlooks the fact that our ancestors took princes and kings from their native shores in Africa, forced them into slavery, into poverty and squalor, and yet now decades later hold their descendants accountable for that very circumstance from which they have evolved, as though they were somehow to blame.
Add to this injustice the injustice of being a teenager, a child in an adult's body, attempting to walk through the uncharted minefield of anticipation and preparation, erstwhile relationships and unreasoned jealousies, not to mention uninvited ubiquitously placed sexual forces vying with extant mores that prohibit succumbing to these forces, a dilemma for which these teenagers receive no assistance from adults who continue to deny that sex was ever a force to be reckoned with during their teenage years. It seems little wonder that Maya Angelou maintains, "Few make it through their teens."
This is the story of a black teenager who tries.
