Like Trees, Walking

The stunning beauty of the writing in this book causes it to utterly transcend its tragic subject matter and somber point of view. This is not at all the kind of book I would normally have read, but luckily I got to meet Ravi Howard at a writers conference and hear him read a little bit of it. It was an amazing experience. I went home, bought the book, and was awed. The book permits the reader to experience a world most of us will never have the privilege to enter. Reading this book made me (finally) understand why people would bother to read literature. Previously I was an all-pulp person. This guy has got some serious writing mojo.

Ravi Howard in this first novel establishes himself as a true southern writer. Like Trees Walking establishes a sense of place and time in Mobile around a violent lynching. The Deacon family has the inner struggles of siblings and family values cast against the stark reality of the death of a friend. The family holds together throughout the novel as ancestral responsibility is slowly shouldered by Roy Deacon as his brother Paul wrestles with the loss of a friend. This novel is a worthy purchase and read.

A book about a racially motivated murder/lynching? Aren't nooses a thing of the past? If you ask the people in Jena Louisiana, they may have a different answer. "Like Trees, Walking," is a beautifully written book about a painful subject. Ravi Howard tells the story so deftly, it isn't like reading: it's like living with the people of the community. This book doesn't punish the reader, never preaches, never tells us what to think or feel, it just puts us in the middle of it. The personal life of the narrator, a high-school kid who wants to get out of Mobile, and away from his family's funeral home buisness, is woven throughout the book, and offers the hope of redemption.

Who better to tell the tale of a young man lynched in 1981 in Mobile, Alabama, than Roy Deacon, youngest son and inheriting employee of THE black funeral home owner in the area, and a teenager whose brother was a classmate of the lynching victim. Rather than proselytizing, Ravi Howard chose to serve up this sad historical event -- one that should never have occurred a decade after the Civil Rights movement had ended -- by telling it through the eyes of an insider, a teenager who must work the funeral of his brother's friend during his own senior year of high school, a fabled and joyous time for most middle-class boys. But Howard does more here than just give us a fictionalized history lesson. He tells the sad story of two brothers whose divergent life paths are indellibly altered by the lynching that the elder brother discovers when he is coming home from working the night shift. The family story creates a personal dynamic that wraps itself around the history and leaves the reader with an understanding that nothing occurs in a vacuum.

Seventeen year old Roy Deacon is looking forward to his upcoming high school graduation and attending college in the fall of 1981. The son of a funeral director, who is currently running the business that has been in his family for seven generations, he is anxiously awaiting leaving this grim profession behind. His brother, Paul, has already taken steps to break away from the family business, which leaves a lot of the burden to assist their father on Roy. All of this changes the day Paul discovers the body of his good friend hanging from a camphor tree - a tree meant for healing. Paul is distraught and Roy is there to support his brother through this crisis while also being responsible for preparing the body for burial. Paul becomes obsessed with trying to get justice for his friend whose heinous murder is being dismissed as a bad drug deal. But the African-American citizens of Mobile, Alabama knows there is more to it than that. Loosely based on a true event, LIKE TREES WALKING is Howard's debut novel that originally started as a short story. This poignant tale embraces the bonds of friendship, family and a community. The author thoroughly researched for this tale which is shown with clarity and conciseness throughout the book. Howard writes with a lyrical prose that portrays the graveness and darkness of the situation without a depressing tone. He uses amazing imagery to paint a picture. This winner of Zora Neale Hurston/Richard Wright award is one to watch. Reviewed by Paula Henderson of The RAWSISTAZ Reviewers