Concrete Rose by Angie Thomas
(HarperCollins, January 12, 2021)
I made my first ever trip to Mississippi recently. I was at my friend’s house, where a jigsaw puzzle occupied a corner of the dining room and two couches stretched out in the adjacent living room, begging for a body and a book.
Pretty soon my friend did hand me a book, Angie Thomas's novel Concrete Rose. I don’t normally read young adult fiction, but the South is a place of good manners, so I flipped to page one and got started.
Concrete Rose tells the story of 17-year old Maverick, a high school student and gang banger whose hard-working mother does not know he is dealing drugs to help her pay bills while his father, an original OG, "old gangsta," does 40 years in prison on drug charges. Maverick, known to his friends as "Li'l Don," lives in a world of basketball, teenage love, and gang tensions.
When Maverick's best friend, a young father eagerly anticipating his upcoming marriage, is gunned down, Maverick's world falls apart. Just 17, he has lost his father and now Dre, the closest he has to a brother. Bent on revenge for Dre's murder, Maverick also finds himself to be an unexpected father, and not by the girl he loves. When the baby mother drops out of sight, the infant becomes Maverick’s responsibility. Maverick learns to change diapers, warm bottles, and coax his baby to sleep, all while going to school.
Given his new role, Maverick can no longer hang out or even do well in school. He struggles to be responsible, to give up dealing, and to earn an honest living in a world without much opportunity for young black men. At the same time, Maverick struggles to win back his girlfriend, who attends parochial school and is determined to go to college the following year.
All the action takes place in Garden Heights, a fictionalized version of the Georgetown section of Jackson, Mississippi, the state capitol, some sixty miles from my friend’s house in Port Gibson.
Garden Heights has babyfathers, gangs, and drive-by shootings, while Port Gibson has Victorian and Antebellum houses, farms, and a commercial center ripe for a renaissance.
Concrete Rose took me into a world I've never encountered and did what great storytelling does. It taught me about people I might never meet in person, yet whose experience of the world is important for me to try to understand.
Knowing Maverick will likely help me next year when I’ll be working with high school students in a demographic more similar to his than mine.
I fell hard for Maverick. I fell hard for Mississippi in general. I had passing thoughts about moving there. Small town life appeals to me. I like walking down the street and saying hello to people. I like houses with history, where sunlight floods through windows peering out onto big trees and flower beds. I like wraparound porches and easy access to the countryside.
Who wouldn’t want the company of dogs like William and Percy, who chase bees and cars and otherwise lounge in a big country kitchen when not sneaking upstairs, where they’re not allowed to go.
Author Angie Thomas grew up in Jackson, Mississippi, and Concrete Rose is a prequel to her debut novel The Hate You Give, a New York Times number one bestseller and the basis for the 2018 film of the same name. During the Black Lives Matter protests in Jackson last summer, Thomas, who was featured in a Time Magazine article, emphasized the power of books to inspire the next generation of leaders.
Actually, books can inspire all of us, as can all forms of beauty.
You can buy Concrete Rose here.
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Beautiful, Sheila.
Your excellent writing makes me want to read this Young Adult title too!-at age 72!