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Slapboxing with Jesus: Stories (Vintage Contemporaries) by [Victor LaValle]

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Victor LaValle

Slapboxing with Jesus: Stories (Vintage Contemporaries) Kindle Edition

by Victor LaValle (Author) Format: Kindle Edition

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Twelve original and interconnected stories in the traditions of Junot Díaz and Sherman Alexie. Victor D. LaValle's astonishing, violent, and funny debut offers harrowing glimpses at the vulnerable lives of young people who struggle not only to come of age, but to survive the city streets.

In "ancient history," two best friends graduating from high school fight to be the one to leave first for a better world; each one wants to be the fortunate son. In "pops," an African-American boy meets his father, a white cop from Connecticut, and tries not to care. And in "kids on colden street," a boy is momentarily uplifted by the arrival of a younger sister only to discover that brutality leads only to brutality in the natural order of things.

Written with raw candor, grit, and a cautious heart, slapboxing with jesus introduces an exciting and bold new craftsman of contemporary fiction. LaValle's voices echo long after their stories are told.

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224 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Vintage
Publication date

July 20, 2011
File size

366 KB
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Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Victor D. LaValle grew up in Queens, New York, an African American male in a city and a country where guys who look like him are made to feel like interlopers. His debut collection, Slapboxing with Jesus, is hard-edged, violent, poetic. As in Junot Diaz's Drown, the prose is a series of choppy, precise sentences, like jabs ("The NYU banners flapped with the wind, loud enough to sound like teeth cracking in your head"), and the stories take place in small stuffy apartments where walls are inadequate shields against the loud and inescapable neighborhood.

Like Diaz, LaValle is pretty merciless when it comes to the subject of women. As the title suggests, this is a macho book. The opening sentence of the first story begins, "The next morning I was still scratching my nuts." Readers without nuts might be a little put off. The love that occurs in these pages is between brothers, between guys who have known each other since they were kids and who have tried to bail each other out, set each other up, find a whore they can both share. In the powerful three-page story "Chuckie," even boyhood bonds break apart in the face of a violent Italian gang. When the title character is beat up, the narrator realizes that he can only protect himself: "The blood started coming. I didn't know a face had so much. Helping was still an option for the others, but not me..."

The highlight of the book is "Ghost Story." Like Denis Johnson's famous "Car Crash While Hitchhiking," it renders paranoid delusions from the first person--and bit by bit the prose collapses as the narrator's medication wears off. Here he recalls a stint in a mental hospital: Just the hours that were eons sitting on a couch, a row of ten of you, ten or twenty, no books, magazines too simple for the mildly retarded and your active mind leaps further and further over an empty cosmos, as lonely as the satellites sent to find life in the universe. But in there, at least, was when I'd realized how they waged their war, my enemies: through sockets and plugs, through a current. Such passages establish LaValle as a writer to be reckoned with, one capable of transporting the reader to a strange and terrible interior. --Emily White

--This text refers to the paperback edition.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

So it was me, my boys and two new kids, Mark and Chuckie. All of us were heavy with equipment, the two new fellas with bikes. Saturdays parents existed only when we woke up and went to bed, the long line of hours in between were just baseball, baseball, baseball. We'd decided to stretch over to that park in the Italian neighborhood; the one near us was full.

The game went right: ground outs, pop flies and stolen bases; I slid into second after a line drive and caught a nice piece of glass in my knee, it left the kind of scar you could roll up your jeans and brag about. While waiting to swing a bat we made up stories about girls far off we were fingering. We were almost ten and spoke loudly.

Baseball diamonds had been etched into the park, three separate plots. It was easy to find little ponds all over; like everything in Flushing they looked good from a distance. Only coming closer could you spy their murky gray insides. In the summers, very faintly, they emitted paint fumes. It was getting dark. That's how night arrived then, bothering you all at once, bursting into the room. One of us said, --Let's get the fuck out of here. We weren't Italian. Not even Mark. Not even Chuckie. This is not to say I had no Italian friends, our neighborhood was a mash of origins, but still, there were intricate politics. This was 1982. You knew where you could be and when.

We gathered up our mitts and balls and both aluminum bats Jung had carried on his wide shoulders. Half a block traveled and I had to run back for the left-handed glove Mom bought special after searching through six different Modell's for a first baseman's. Then I chugged back to the guys on their feet, ahead of them Chuckie, Mark and the bikes they'd rode in on, these dope silver Huffys. Those two had learned how to do spins, other tricks, and instantly I hated them like I did all my boys: secretly. Those ties didn't mean much to me. When you stopped speaking to some kid there would be another; one thing Flushing had in abundance was people.

Ahead, Mark was screaming. For us. Chuckie too. We got closer quickly. Beyond them all the setting sun's flames were running down to an orange gasp on the horizon. Two sweaty boys gripped one set of handlebars each. They were old enough to buy beer. Smiling and Laughing, that might as well have been their names. One said, --Come on, let us ride them once.

Mark said, --I gotta get home, man. He sounded like he was going to cry.

--Me and my friend just want to ride around the corner, said the other one. Smiling.

--We gotta help them, Jung pleaded. He had invited them along so what else could he say? We weren't fifteen feet off. The two thieves hadn't noticed us, didn't look even as we crossed the street: moving away. Chuckie and Mark were on their own.

The trees all around had been season-stripped of every leaf; pulsing winds made the branches crash and shake like hands applauding. Mark turned to us, then Chuckie, they took a moment to stare. Only the arms of the older duo moved as they tugged and jerked the bikes. We heard yelling. The chain-link fence surrounding an old home swayed loosely, its rattle a language. --Guys, Jung tried again. We should really go over and help.

--Will you shut the fuck up, I said. I was afraid the way people must be during a hurricane, thinking, Will it come for me? I had seen fights, started and lost them, I wasn't a novice. But this was a beating.

Mark was thrown off his bike. Next Chuckie. Then the tall one was kicking Chuckie in the head. Mark got up and ran--not toward us, just away. I couldn't tell you how long those guys worked on Chuckie. It was a few minutes. Even one or two are very long. The blood started coming. I didn't know a face had so much. Helping was still an option for the others, but not me; it could have been Jung getting beat, my own father; many people would call me the betrayer, often, but that was because they'd mistaken me for a friend when I was just hanging around. There was only one kid I ever cared for and his name wasn't Chuckie. It wasn't any of these guys.

When a loud -pop- echoed from across the street I didn't flinch, wasn't even sure it had come from nearby.

Ten is too young to learn how you are. That you wouldn't run for the ambulance, as all my friends did, while Chuckie clutched at his eye like his very own soul was in danger of escaping. Booth Memorial didn't send an ambulance quickly. To the right, in the park, squirrels appeared, ruthlessly picking at the ground for food; from where I stood their quick little hops were even more graceful; when they ate energetically they seemed to be on their knees, paws forward in a frantic prayer. --This text refers to the paperback edition.

About the Author

Victor D. LaValle was raised in Flushing and Rosedale, Queens. He graduated from Cornell University with a degree in English and received his M.F.A. in Fiction from Columbia University. He has been a fellow at the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, Massachusetts. Currently he is at work on his first novel. --This text refers to the paperback edition.

From the Back Cover

Thirteen original and interconnected stories in the traditions of Junot Diaz and Sherman Alexie. Victor D. LaValle's astonishing, violent, and funny debut offers harrowing glimpses at the vulnerable lives of young people who struggle not only to come of age, but to survive the city streets.

In "ancient history", two best friends graduating from high school fight to be the one to leave first for a better world; each one wants to be the fortunate son. In "pops", an African-American boy meets his father, a white cop from Connecticut, and tries not to care. And in "kids on colden street", a boy is momentarily uplifted by the arrival of a younger sister only to discover that brutality leads only to brutality in the natural order of things.

Written with raw candor, grit, and a cautious heart, slapboxing with jesus introduces an exciting and bold new voice in contemporary fiction. LaValle's voices echo long after their stories are told.

--This text refers to the paperback edition.

From the Inside Flap

Twelve original and interconnected stories in the traditions of Junot Diaz and Sherman Alexie. Victor D. LaValle's astonishing, violent, and funny debut offers harrowing glimpses at the vulnerable lives of young people who struggle not only to come of age, but to survive the city streets.
In "ancient history," two best friends graduating from high school fight to be the one to leave first for a better world; each one wants to be the fortunate son. In "pops," an African-American boy meets his father, a white cop from Connecticut, and tries not to care. And in "kids on colden street," a boy is momentarily uplifted by the arrival of a younger sister only to discover that brutality leads only to brutality in the natural order of things.
Written with raw candor, grit, and a cautious heart, slapboxing with jesus introduces an exciting and bold new craftsman of contemporary fiction. LaValle's voices echo long after their stories are told. --This text refers to the paperback edition.

Review

"Victor D. LaValle is a miracle. He's funny and tragic, he has an eye as sharp as a gem cutter's. He is the rarest of breeds, a natural artist."--Michael Cunningham, author of The Hours

"Once in a long while, a new voice in fiction rings so true that we must pay attention. Victor D. LaValle transforms streetsmart reality into an urban poetry of endurance. An energy and surprising humor informs LaValle's collection in which each beautifully observed, perfectly heard story builds toward a fierce affirmation still possible in art."--Maureen Howard, author of A Lover's Almanac --This text refers to the paperback edition.

From Kirkus Reviews

A superb first collection of 12 partially interrelated tales about ethnic minorities struggling for survival in contemporary New York City and environs, reminiscent ofand at their best equal toPuerto RicanAmerican Junot Daz's seminal Drown (1996). LaValle's penchant for narrative and typographical quirksstories begun in initially baffling mediae res, titles that eschew capital letters, a wide space between paragraphs followed by the sentence ``Thats how long she paused, watching me''belie the blunt realism of his taut stories, which are grouped under the rubrics ``the autobiography of new york today'' and ``one boy's beginnings.'' The opening section focuses on urban layabouts loosely promising themselves they'll channel their violence into military careers (``ancient history'') or engaging in dangerously unsafe sex (``raw daddy'')and, in two notably vivid pieces, recording a lonely computer programmer's hesitant romance with a hooker unfazed by his looks (getting ugly''), and a teenaged bisexual prostitute's fatalistic lifestyle (``slave,'' a horrific vignette capped by a stunning final sentence). The volume's second section features multiracial teenaged Anthony, in ``trinidad'' (where he's exiled, in hopes he'll ``outgrow'' his incipient homosexuality), and growing up in and around Flushing, where he devises strategies to sidestep neighborhood brutality (in ``chuckie'' and ``kids on colden street''the latter another whose steel-trap ending pulls you right up out of your chair), hesitantly bonds with an absentee father (`pops''), ruefully observes his mother's grandiose wish-dreaming (``how i lost my inheritance''), and erratically negotiates the pitfalls of ethnic conflict and emergent sexuality (who did we worship''). Throughout, LaValle maintains pitch-perfect tension between his stories' bleak contents and the willed detachment nourished by their composite protagonist-narrator, who continually reminds himself that ``A civilization has been lost. Minor herodotus I will be, remembering it all.'' A debut of impressive originality and subtly understated emotional force. We may be hearing here one of the most eloquent new voices of the approaching century. -- Copyright ©1999, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the paperback edition.

From Publishers Weekly

"These days, the most revolutionary thing you can be is articulate," a teacher tells one of the characters in LaValle's debut collection, whichAby that standardAis more than revolutionary: it's radiant. These 12 stories mostly concern boysAblack, white, Latino, AsianAcoming of age in Queens during the 1980s, and their strategies for surviving street life on the one hand and, just as harrowing, adolescence on the other. All bluster on the surface, LaValle's characters are disarmingly vulnerable underneath, and this book is as warm and funny as it is tough. The one thing these hard-shelled boys from the hood crave most is to be held tenderly. Unfortunately, they get in their own way more often than not. In "raw daddy," Sean spends his days dreaming of ways to save humanity, but can't resist cheating on his girlfriend. In "getting ugly," the "big eyes and funny skin" narrator won't admit he's falling in love with beautiful Deidre; even as he watches a sentimental sunset with her, he insists he's just "out for ass." And in "class trip," 15-year-old Anthony makes arrangements with his friends to visit a crackhead prostitute behind his girlfriend's back. When they're not dreaming of love, LaValle's characters are dreaming of escape: Ahab joins the Marines, his best friend Horse moves to the suburbs and Anthony plots to get into trouble so he'll be sent to an aunt in Trinidad as punishment. The stories are stunningly craftedAespecially the last seven, which all feature AnthonyAand the writing is sharp and jazzy: parakeets are "not quite green... only half ripe"; goats have the faces of "Evil Professors"; and memories come "as easy as a cookie with your tea." If LaValle's characters make tragic, disastrous choices at times, they are nevertheless redeemed through the power of their narratives. "Minor Herodotus I will be, in remembering it all," LaValle writes; "our lives, to me, are important artifacts." This is an impressive, accomplished debut. Agent, Gloria Loomis. (Oct.) FYI: LaValle has been chosen for the Barnes & Noble Discover New Writers program.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the paperback edition.

Product details

ASIN ‏ : ‎ B00589B9E4
Publisher ‏ : ‎ Vintage; 1st edition (July 20, 2011)
Publication date ‏ : ‎ July 20, 2011
Language ‏ : ‎ English
File size ‏ : ‎ 366 KB
Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Print length ‏ : ‎ 224 pages
Lending ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled

Best Sellers Rank: #1,536,506 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- #4,070 in Contemporary Urban Fiction
- #4,226 in U.S. Short Stories
- #5,395 in Comedic Dramas & Plays

Customer Reviews:
41 ratings

About the author

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Victor LaValle

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Victor LaValle is the author of a short-story collection, Slapboxing with Jesus, four novels, The Ecstatic, Big Machine, The Devil in Silver & The Changeling, and two novellas, Lucretia and the Kroons and The Ballad of Black Tom.

His most recent novel, THE CHANGELING, is an old school fairy tale. It's made to keep you up at night. It's meant to make you scared.

Customer reviews

5 star		61%
4 star		13%
3 star		17%
2 star		9%
1 star 0% (0%)		0%

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Top reviews from the United States

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Curious_J

One of the best short story collections I've read, worthwhile

Reviewed in the United States on January 7, 2016

Verified Purchase

Language is fresh and bold. Yes, this is an interlinked short story collection in the vein of Juno Diaz, whom I love. But it is not Juno Diaz. LaValle brings his own voice, which is just as imaginative but different.

I love the economy of each story. LaValle doesn't waste a single word. And what isn't there makes the reader think deeper. There is so much in between the lines. It takes thoughtful reading to really enjoy this book. But it is every bit worth the effort.

My favorite is "Ghost Story." Initially, I thought it was just a story about an eccentric college student. Then, towards the end of it, I realized it was an entirely different story than the one I expected. And the turn was rewarding because it was both expected and unexpected.

Each story accomplishes so much in relatively limited space. In just a few pages, I found myself changed in the way I look at the world. If you want to read a book that enlarges your circle of compassion, I'd recommend this one.

Helpful

Jennifer Cart

Did I read the same book as everyone else?

Reviewed in the United States on May 2, 2017

Verified Purchase

Did anyone consider that this book wasn't a collection of short stories written about different boys? What I got by the end of the book is that is that it is the same boy/young man with multiple personalities. Consequentially, the girl he is seeing has multiple personalities as well. When he is with his group of friends/roommates they are his alters. That's why people are so frustrated with him all the time. I had this about half way through. All your deep insights about different cultures are snap analyses.

Helpful

Calvin Pennywell Jr.

So good, it makes you want to soapbox your mama...

Reviewed in the United States on November 3, 2014

Verified Purchase

Reading this book was like listening to a hip hop album. The authors raw perspective in growing up in New York draws a reader in, causing one to be interested in a rare experience pertaining to a popular city. It reminds me of growing up with my boys back on high school--awkward moments with lost parents and trying to figure out life with such an immature POV. This a good book; the kind you can't put down until you see what the main character gets himself into with his friends and family.

Reviewed in the United States on September 15, 2017

Verified Purchase

Did not care about any of the characters in the book so stipped reading after several chapters.

Reviewed in the United States on August 17, 2014

Verified Purchase

Language is sharp and moving

Helpful

The Dhimmi Philosopher

Readers would also like "Jenna's Flaw"

Reviewed in the United States on December 6, 2005

I had moved to Nebraska to do a Ph.D. in philosophy, and before my first year of school had started, I was in the public library reading through the fiction stacks. I saw Hemingway and Gaines, Carver and Alexie. Then I saw LaValle. I pulled down this book and started to read.

I never stopped. I dropped out of the philosphy program and started writing fiction. That's how powerful these books were, especially LaValle's.

Slapboxing with Jesus is my favorite short story collection by a living writer. These stories are amazing, and LaValle's voice is like no other. I've marked up these stories, studying technique, dialogue, pacing, etc (I didn't get into creative writing programs, so I'm going at it alone). The margins are so marked up that I'll soon purchase a new copy of Slapboxing.

These stories of Queens kids are some of my favorites, especially "Chuckie" and "Class Trip." They have served as models for my own writing, and I never tire of reading them.

Also recommended: "Jenna's Flaw"

5 people found this helpful

Helpful

don't rate the fuss

Reviewed in the United States on December 28, 1999

Hmmm. People really seem to like this collection of 12 somewhat interrelated short stories. To be quite honest I'm not sure what all the fuss is about: the writing is pretty cool, Lavalle has his own distinctive voice, but for the most part, the actual stories never quite worked for me. The first five stories, which are set contemporarily, were particularly melodramatic and suffer as a result. The second part of the book, about kids in the late-70s and early 80s is much better and rings truer. This is probably one of those books that would be a lot more interesting if I'd grown up in the same time and place as the author.
Better collections in the same vein are Jervey Tervalon's _Living For the City_ and Edward P. Jones' _Lost in the City_.
Oh yeah, on page 166, it's Graig Nettles, not "Craig"...

4 people found this helpful

Helpful

Sesho

NOT A GOOD TEACHER

Reviewed in the United States on March 30, 2003

Books written about the street aren't necessarily good. Some people believe that if you show enough realism and grittiness, in essence, show the street as it truly is, art will result. They're wrong, as is evidenced by this generic collection of stories about young boys sexing it up, fighting, pimping, killing, and basically living like animals. There's something really creepy and unsettling about the subject matter that Lavalle has chosen.
I must tell you from the outset that I do not believe in collections of stories that have thin connections between each other, mostly when it's through the characters. To me, they are written by writers without enough vision to craft a novel. They write a lot of stories and then they concoct that they go together. The same goes for this book.
All of the stories have to do with young men or boy-children. The first couple of stories work the best because the novelty of the subject and setting hasn't got old yet. In "ancient history" two friends vie to become successful. "pops" concerns the first meeting between a boy and his cop father, with all the ensuing awkwardness. "kids on colden street" shows a boy who gets a kid sister and becomes her protector. In the end he realizes he can protect her from nothing.
While I thought the stories in this book were adequate, there was something too craftsmanlike about them. None of the characters were really established enough to care about them through the whole volume. While it had spats of good writing, it was mostly just average.

5 people found this helpful

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