Hell of a Book

“‘You’ll be unseen and safe for as long as you live,” his father said. “‘[…] Can you even imagine it?” 

“Unseen and safe” is a refrain that repeats throughout the novel. It is a mantra that William and his wife teach Soot as they try to also teach him how to become invisible. Visibility can be dangerous because when Black people are seen they are made vulnerable to racial violence. Hell of a Book leans on the concept of visibility to comment on this vulnerability because of the way that race for most Black people is a visually apparent part of one’s identity.

“Then his mother hugged him and the three of them danced and laughed and smiled like they never had before. In that moment, the worries that had always hung over their heads were suddenly gone.”

This is the last moment where Soot and his family are perfectly happy and safe. Following this scene, Soot’s narrative is increasingly sad and difficult. Yet, while this scene is happy, it raises the question of why Soot’s parents would teach him to turn invisible. This yet unanswered question introduces tension in an otherwise peaceful moment and foreshadows the conflict of racial violence and fear that would bring about the need for invisibility.

“The thing to remember is this: above all else, this is a love story. Don’t ever forget that.”

The first-person narrator sets up the expectation that Hell of a Book will be a love story. This prepares the reader to search for love interests as the plot develops. However, romantic love is not one of the main elements of the novel. This conflict between the expectation and the actual book allows the reader to reevaluate what a love story is and how Hell of a Book might be one without a lasting romantic love interest.

“I rarely worry about the facts, only about the reality that my imagination and I choose to see.”

The narrator has a trauma-induced condition that gives him memory loss and hallucinations. This means that he has difficulty perceiving the difference between reality and imagination. This makes him an “unreliable narrator” because the reader cannot trust that he is recounting the story accurately.

“‘It’s cool,’ The Kid says. ‘You ain’t gotta stay. I just wanted you to see me. That’s all.’”

When The Kid first appears to the first-person narrator, his only request is that he see The Kid. The narrator doesn’t understand the meaning of this at first, and it is only at the end of the book that he realizes that by “see” The Kid means for him to understand him and tell his story for him. It is also ironic for The Kid to ask to be seen when his main comfort and safety come from invisibility.

“Others did not grin, but neither did they look away. Soot wondered about those kids the most. He wondered how they could watch and say nothing. But he also knew that he would do the same.”

Here, Mott comments on how inaction in the face of wrongdoing is an act of complicity. Soot’s bullying is a microcosm of systemic racial injustice in the world. This scene mirrors others in the parallel narrative where characters (e.g.,, the old lady in the elevator in Chapter 2, Sharon in Chapter 8) comment that Soot’s murder is a shame but take no action to protest the injustice. Mott criticizes complacency, yet he recognizes through Soot’s remark that “he would do the same” that most people are guilty of such complacency.

“Tyrone had the perfect skin. High yellow. Light as butter. The holiest of blessings. Light skin got you girls. Light skin made teachers like you. Light skin made you a star in Hollywood. Light skin was everything. And almost all skin was lighter than his, so what did that say about what the future held for him?”

As a fairer-skinned Black person, Tyrone can take advantage of light-skinned privilege. This privilege is a result of colorism, a phenomenon in which lighter skinned people are given preference over darker skinned people. Colorism is a direct result of racism in that light skin gains privilege through its perceived proximity to whiteness.

“‘The past is the root from which the present grows,’ she said.”

The first-person narrator’s therapist tells him this when she tries to convince him that his condition is a result of some unaddressed trauma from the past. This turns out to be true when we learn that he has not healed from the deaths of his parents. While the therapist’s comment applies on an individual level, it also applies on a broader scale. In Mott’s later references to slavery as the root for contemporary anti-Black racism (see Chapter 24), he demonstrates that that past is also the root from which a present racism grows.

“If there’s one thing I know about being Black—and I know it immediately even though I’ve known about my Blackness for only a few minutes—it’s that dark skin is a sin. Hell of an affliction. The last thing you want. Just ask anyone.” 

When the narrator calls dark skin a sin, he recognizes the way that society condemns, criminalizes, and victimizes Black people, especially those with darker skin. It is telling that he has forgotten his own Blackness up until this point but cannot forget the negative associations with it. This idea of Black skin as a sin connects to another remark by Jack, the media trainer, in Chapter 8 that being Black is a curse.

“And let’s face it: in this world that we live in, the fact of the matter is that it’s hard to think of anyone as being real. Everyone is just an image on a screen somewhere.” 

To avoid the pain of empathy, the first-person narrator does not build lasting connections with others and tries to forget or push away those he is connected to (such as his parents, or Kelly). His description of people as “just an image on a screen somewhere” also relates to how victims of racial violence often go viral on the internet. This virality makes them hypervisible but also leads to the public being desensitized to the tragedy and disconnected from the people.

“He was already there back then. How did I forget that? But, then again, I can only be so surprised. It’s like I told you before: I can’t trust my mind. I never know what’s then, what’s now, and what never really happened at all.”

Here, the narrator realizes that The Kid was in his life earlier than when he thought was the first time he saw him. Again, this reinforces his position as an unreliable narrator who the reader cannot trust to give accurate accounts of his experiences. This quote also demonstrates how the line between the past and the present is blurred for the narrator. This evokes the novel’s larger argument that the past and the present are connected. This argument is made through Mott identifying slavery as a root for present-day racial violence, and the narrator’s therapist identifying childhood trauma as a root for adult mental illness.

“Don’t write about race. Specifically, don’t write about being Black. You can write about Black characters, but just don’t write about being Black. No.”

Jack the media trainer advises the narrator that he should not write about his racial experience because it is off-putting for readers to be reminded of racial inequality. Later in the chapter, Jack tells the narrator to write what is universal, such as a love story. In a meta move, Jason Mott slyly takes Jack’s advice by having the narrator insist in Chapter 2 that Hell of a Book is a love story and conclude in Chapter 30 that it is a love story about racial self-love. In this way, Hell of a Book both takes and breaks Jack’s advice.

“The last thing people really want to hear about is being Black. Being Black’s a curse—no offense—and nobody wants to feel cursed when they read something they just finished paying $24.95 for. Know what I mean?” 

As Jack the media trainer advises the narrator not to write about being Black, he reminds him that the goal is to be marketable. Consumerism is a recurring concept in the novel as well, where Sharon identifies Soot’s murder as an opportunity for the narrator to meet Soot’s mom and gain publicity. While Jack sees Blackness as an unprofitable idea, this is ironic in relation to the history of slavery where Blackness was a commodity with consumer value.

“‘Now,’ I begin, ‘What’s your favorite animal?’ ‘A peacock!’ The Kid says, eyes dancing.” 

When the narrator asks The Kid what his favorite animal is, he responds that it is the peacock. This is comical and ironic because peacocks are brightly colored creatures whose large, colorful feathers are designed to attract attention. This hypervisible animal stands in contrast to Soot, who is black-skinned and tries his best to be invisible. When the peacock turns out to be black and invisible, it symbolizes Soot himself who is also black, also invisible, and yet trying to be seen by the narrator, just as the peacock’s large feathers are an effort to be seen.

“It was too much of a dream, The Unseen. It was too smooth. Too perfect. Too Miles Davis. Too Prince. Too Soul Train. Too Martin. Too Def Comedy Jam. It was too much of a perfect and pristine thing to sit back and keep it to himself.” 

When Soot first becomes The Unseen it is a perfect and free state of being that creates distance from him and his painful reality. The freeing feeling of being The Unseen is associated exclusively with elements of African American popular culture, such as the Black jazz musician Miles Davis or the Black stand-up comedy show Def Comedy Jam. The Unseen is a quintessentially Black realm and state of being, free of white oppression and tailored specifically to Soot, he needs to be invisible, especially to white people.

“I’m sure the Black bodies from before must have called out his name but I can’t say exactly which belongs to The Kid. In his death, he’s just The Kid.”

Despite all the news coverage about Soot’s death, the narrator never notices or remembers his name. This ties into the reality of the politics around victims of police brutality, where protesters are intentional about reciting and remembering the names of the victims to honor their memory. The political refrain “Say their names” underscores how easy it is to forget and ignore that the victims were real people. Yet, as Soot simply is “The Kid” in the narrator’s mind, this comments on how the victims are so many that their names can be easily forgotten.

“‘Why can’t you sleep?’ I ask Martha. ‘Dreams,’ she says. ‘Bad dreams?’ ‘No,’ she replies, ‘just dreams. Never really cared for them.’”

Renny’s wife, Martha, explains to the narrator that she cannot sleep because of her dreams, although her dreams are not bad. In declining to experience her dreams, Martha is grounded in reality. This contrasts the narrator who experiences hallucinations like waking dreams and cannot ever ground himself fully in reality.

“I go to speak but before I can, Kelly leans in and kisses me. Fireworks. Music. Sunlight. Ginger and cinnamon. The moment our lips touch, these things are the only things that matter. The bustling crowd of airport travelers around us suddenly drops their luggage and erupts into dance.”

The narrator has dated several women named Kelly. However, this Kelly is the first woman who truly feels he may be in love with. Their magical kiss reminds the reader of the narrator’s promise that Hell of a Book is supposed to be a love story. However, Kelly is a red herring for the intended subject of love in the story. Their relationship ultimately fails and is not central to the story.

“The whole town turned out to solve the tragedy of William’s death. While the man’s body lay on a slab in the coroner’s office over in Whiteville, an old church in a small town groaned under the weight of people too angry, sad, and afraid to put their own thoughts into words. And so they sought God and a man of God to speak for them.” 

After William’s murder, the people in town turn to the church for comfort. Later, Uncle Paul and other townspeople gather at the back of the church to decide how they might get justice for William. This scene reflects how the church has historically been an important site of Black community and political. This idea is reinforced later in Chapter 22 where we see that Bolton’s town hall is also a church.

“Dear Mr. Lord of War: The whole world of my life spins under a radiant marquee of fear. Day in and day out it kills me, over and over and over again. Kills me dead, just to restart it all tomorrow. And all I can do about it is tell people that I’m fine. Thanks for reading.” 

The narrator writes this along with his autograph in actor Nicolas Cage’s copy of Hell of a Book when they meet on a plane. This quote evokes the repeated pain that the narrator lives through and his inability to escape the cycle of each day, as the pain is the same. It is only when he decides to live differently, address the trauma of the loss of his parents and deciding to tell The Kid’s story, that he can approach life with a new optimism.

“You see, the thing those fablers don’t get is that certain kids don’t get a fair chance to chase the dream. The world murders them first. Murders them, but fails to kill them. So these kids, they die young and grow a little more mad every day from then on out.” 

In this mention of murder, the narrator references the many young Black victims of racial violence. However, he also describes to a different kind of murder where kids “die young and grow a little more mad every day.” This refers to the disruption of childhood innocence, where racial injustice prevents Black children from being able to enjoy a full childhood before they are exposed to the fear or consequences of racial violence.

“‘Don’t the past matter?’ ‘It does,’ I say. ‘Not just three-fifths of it, but all of it.’” 

The ex-police officer who murdered Soot comes to the first-person narrator requesting that he write about how he is a good person. The ex-officer makes the case that he was a good man and father before the incident. But while asking for his past to count in his favor, he also undermines the past of racial violence and his own personal racism that he says led him to murder the boy. When the narrator insists that all the past matters, “not just three-fifths of it,” he evokes the Three-Fifths Compromise that legally codified a debasement of Black people as less than a whole person. 

“Laugh all you want, but I think learning to love yourself in a country where you’re told that you’re a plague on the economy, that you’re nothing but a prisoner in the making, that your life can be taken away from you at any moment and there’s nothing you can do about it—learning to love yourself in the middle of all that? Hell, that’s a goddamn miracle.” 

Here, the narrator delivers on his promise that Hell of a Book is a love story. However, it is not a romantic love story between him and Kelly. Instead, he reveals that it is a story about a Black person learning to love himself in a world that deems him worthy only of hate.