Hell of a Book

Blackness is a recurring motif in the novel in terms of both race and color. It first appears with Soot who is “impossibly dark-skinned” (22). It is this dark black skin that alienates him socially, even from other Black people. The novel implies that Soot is representative of all the Black people who have been murdered through racially motivated violence. Soot’s dark skin, in this way, takes on the Blackness of all these people; when the narrator sees the arm of his corpse in the funeral home, he describes it as “impossibly black. As if it has captured the pigment of an entire nation” (160). Soot can be read as a messianic figure, bearing the collective burden of racial discrimination. If, as the narrator says, “dark skin is a sin” (81), then Soot as the blackest possible person there is, bears the metaphorical sins of all others, as Jesus Christ bears the sin of the world, according to Christian theology. We see evidence of this messianic interpretation also in how Soot appears to resurrect in a ghostly, invisible form as The Kid in the first-person narrator’s narrative. 

Blackness also appears in the recurrence of nighttime as a veil of safety. William, Soot’s father, enjoys going for runs at night because the darkness shields him from the gazes of others. He feels unseen and safe at night; yet it is during the night that he is stopped by police and killed. This appears again when Soot goes for a walk at night, feeling safe in the darkness as well. Ultimately, however, he too is shot at night.

Fear is attributed repeatedly to Black parents in Hell of a Book. Soot’s mother begins the novel worried about her son’s brief disappearance. She has her “brow furrowed” (3) and her hands like “fidgeting doves” (4). Throughout the novel, Both William and his wife are afraid that Soot will be a victim to racial violence. This is the motivation for them teaching him how to turn invisible. Part of the reason why William likes the old movies that he and Soot watch (the same old movies the narrator watched with his father), is because of the bravery the leading characters exhibit. The narrator says, “The characters in those noir pictures were never afraid of anybody” (e 126). William enjoys the movies because he also doesn’t want to be afraid, but he harbors many fears of being a bad father, dying, or the things not changing. 

In Chapter 10, narrator talks to The Kid about “The Fear.” He describes it as a fear that everyone has that they will fall into misfortune, or the fear Black people feel that they or their loved ones will become victims of racial violence. However, the narrator decides not to share this second aspect of the fear with The Kid. It is fear of the pain that comes with facing past traumas that also keeps the narrator from remembering his mother’s death for most of the narrative. That same fear also delays him in recognizing The Kid’s request that he tell The Kid’s story.