- Anna Maria Junus
Deal Me In Short Story Challenge Week 3: Sonny's Blues
So this past week I pulled the King of Hearts. Again, this is fitting since "Sonny's Blues" is the classic story of two brothers struggling to understand each other.
Our narrator is the good guy older brother. He's a high school teacher, married, and a responsible father to three young children. The much younger brother, Sonny, has just served time in prison for selling and using drugs. He has no relatives other than his brother, no responsibilities, and his career consists of playing the piano in bars.
Their worlds are very different even though they came from the same home.
The older brother who isn't named, finds out about Sonny's incarceration through the newspaper. He hasn't kept in touch with his brother and he decides to continue to keep his distance. But the sudden death of his daughter from polio causes him to reach out. Losing someone makes you realize how precious life is and how little time there is. Especially in the case of someone with a drug addiction and a prison record.
When Sonny gets out, it's his brother's place he's welcomed into. James Baldwin is an African American writer who writes about being African American yet at the same time, this story that is clearly from that culture from the descriptions and the way it's written, reaches out beyond racial lines. Yes, it's an African American story. Baldwin writes in a way that takes you to that space, that neighborhood, and shows the people that define that culture, while smashing it at the same time. Our narrator is a high school teacher in the fifties, an educated man, who is struggling to understand why his brother has chosen the path he's chosen. Certainly not the way that white America viewed black men. And yet, this could be the story of any brothers from any culture, of any color. Or the story of sisters. There are some interesting perspectives here by Sonny. When they sit down and have a rare conversation the topic turns to suffering and the narrator tells his brother "There's no way not to suffer. Isn't it better than, just to - take it?" And Sonny replies, "But nobody just takes it, that's what I'm telling you. Everybody tries not to. You're just hung up on the way some people try - it's not your way." He is clearly referring to his drug addiction. It's an interesting perspective. Being a black person in the 1950's was a time of tremendous suffering and while one brother chose to deal with suffering through education and family and teaching kids, the other found music and drugs.
Now music itself doesn't lead to drugs, but the limited places that Sonny could perform did. When you surround yourself with people who do drugs most people eventually succumb. it's not a world that older brother understands so Sonny asks him to come and listen to him play.
Sonny plays jazz blues. Not the kind of jazz like the big bands of Glen Miller. Even the mention of the name Louis Armstrong makes Sonny's nose wrinkle in rejection. This is blues that is not written down, not rehearsed. It comes from the soul and changes as the mood of the player does. The musicians may play together, but they do so by listening and feeling with each other, an unseen connection that exists within the group and shared with the audience. Many who listen will not understand the connection and might only hear the notes, some not so pretty, but others, like Sonny's older brother, will hear the stories behind the notes and come to an understanding, if only for those moments. James Baldwin was an influential writer. He paved the way for many writers not just in the African American world but he wrote about LGBTQ issues as well, long before it was acceptable. The reason I like this challenge so much, is that it introduces me to writers I might not ever read without committing me to a full length novel. James Baldwin is one of them. Does this mean I'll read his books? Probably not. But I'm glad I read this story. I feel enriched by it.
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Want to join in on the short story challenge? Here are the rules. Deal Me In Short Story Challenge
