Title: Disgruntled Author: Asali Solomon
Published: February 3, 2015
Genre(s): Literary Fiction
Page Count: 285
Rating:
Summary from Goodreads:Kenya Curtis is only eight years old, but she knows that she's different, even if she can't put her finger on how or why. It's not because she's black—most of the other students in the fourth-grade class at her West Philadelphia elementary school are too. Maybe it's because she celebrates Kwanzaa, or because she's forbidden from reciting the Pledge of Allegiance. Maybe it's because she calls her father—a housepainter-slash-philosopher—"Baba" instead of "Daddy," or because her parents' friends gather to pour out libations "from the Creator, for the Martyrs" and discuss "the community."
Kenya does know that it's connected to what her Baba calls "the shame of being alive"—a shame that only grows deeper and more complex over the course of Asali Solomon's long-awaited debut novel. Disgruntled, effortlessly funny and achingly poignant, follows Kenya from West Philadelphia to the suburbs, from public school to private, from childhood through adolescence, as she grows increasingly disgruntled by her inability to find any place or thing or person that feels like home.
Disgruntled is a smart, fresh coming of age novel full of “the shame of being alive”—a particular embarrassment that Kenya Curtis becomes intimately acquainted with over the course of her adolescence. In this brief book, author Asali Solomon tracks not only Kenya’s awkward growing up years but also her parents’ shifting lives, as well as the cultural climate of the United States at the end of the twentieth century.
Beginning when Kenya is 8 and concluding when she’s 19, this book covers a lot of ground in a relatively short span of pages. Solomon keeps the story’s pace going at a steady clip, and often scenes will break and shift forward abruptly. Yet in spite of a sometimes bumpy narrative, Disgruntled still feels cohesive and focused. Like many character-driven slash literary novels, it doesn’t have a traditional plot, but the force of the author’s prose and the characters’ personalities kept the story afloat.
It is interesting to me that in spite of her capacity as the book’s protagonist, I feel that I got to know Kenya least of all the characters. Her parents stand out much more vividly—perhaps it’s a case of a person observing and understanding others but not fully comprehending themself. An intriguing thought, though the author does narrate from a distant third person perspective rater than a more intimate first person.
However, the third person narration was, I believe, a good technical decision. Because of it, Solomon is able to zoom away from Kenya, and though she’s always in focus, other things are allowed to make appearances in the frame. This, in turn, gives Disgruntled a rich cultural context in which to view Kenya, her family, and her peers. Solomon, indeed, pulls a very distinctive 1980s/1990s atmosphere into the story, though never in a way that feels forced or theatrical. The time in which Disgruntled takes place is very necessary to the story the author has to tell. More, the clarity and subtle humor of the author’s prose make it seem as if the book is constantly revealing some truth—whether regarding race, religion, society, or art.
Though pervading with a sense of authenticity and truth, taken as a whole, there are some things about Kenya’s life that seem almost too far-fetched. It’s not that all the events that occur in Disgruntled couldn’t happen to one person—it’s that there’s something darkly comic about the way the events are presented that brings the story one step back from reality. But the vividness of personality, the easy pace of the narrative, and the grace of the author’s prose all temper that pseudo-surrealism. Even if you’ve never met a girl like Kenya Curtis, you believe in the possibility of a girl like her.
There is something so appealing about Kenya’s story, and about bildungsromane in general, with its infinite variety—unlike some other story formats, the options for this kind of narrative are near endless. I’ve read a great many coming of age novels, but never one like Disgruntled. With clear insight, Asali Solomon was able to portray not only Kenya and her family and friends, but also the dynamic environment she inhabited, which perhaps molded her just as much as anything (or anyone) else.
