By Abigail Savitch-Lew
If I did not know Abigail and happened to pass this title in a book store, I would likely walk by. That would have been a shame. But I do know Abigail and her work. When my copy arrived at home, I was anxious to open the book, though I had no idea what the book was about. I was soon to find out and once started, it was difficult to put down.
Abigail brilliantly weaves mostly disparate, interlacing cultural threads into a story that is so Brooklyn, so New York, and likely reflective of many urban histories and personal experiences throughout the United States. This is a story of struggle, power relations, family relations, personal challenges, official neglect, private abuse, exploitation, corruption, tragedy, and the beauty of diverse, functioning communities engaging in collective action. But it is mostly a story of survival.
I have written and read extensively on topics covered masterfully by Abigail in this book. Responding to the effects of block busting, urban renewal, white flight, root shock, gentrification, arson and more have not only been a big part of my professional career, but my personal life as well. I lived in the South Bronx for over 40 years through disinvestment, abandonment, fires, service cutbacks, the extreme devastation caused by private greed and public neglect, followed by the rebuilding, return of private investment, and the gentrification that followed.
In her book, Abigail presents all of these traumatic human disruptions such that you feel them through the characters she takes great pains to describe. I am reminded about something Audre Lord wrote – survival is not theoretical and it is not silent. Too often, we are told or we read about impactful changes that occur and, if we are not personally effected, we might bemoan the circumstances, appreciate the information on an abstract level, but then move on. In Livonia Chow Mein, if you have any empathy, you cannot help but individually feel the emotional and psychological effects of personal tragedies, neighborhood destruction, and a realization of the economic and political insignificance we are expected to accept and accommodate. But never in this book do you despair about the ever-present potential of social significance that does not remain buried by events beyond our control. Always, it lingers with impactful potential right below the surface. It only needs to be recognized, nourished, appreciated, and provoked to release its power. And diversity adds to that significance and our transformative power, in the same way we appreciate and rely upon diversity in nature to fulfill its potential and meet our collective needs. Though only mentioned in passing, Abigail even mentions the importance of mycelium in this story.
So there is optimism, mixed in with struggle. I am not sure of exactly why, but there is one tragedy in the book that struck me more than others. This was in the chapter dealing with the deaths of Nellie and her son Wesley. As she did with others, Abigail developed Nellie’s character well and you felt as though you knew her (as you likely have a Nellie somewhere in your life). You become acquainted with Wesley, but mostly through his mother. His arbitrary, capricious and sudden murder in the elevator of the projects, and his mother’s subsequent suicide, hit me hard. I think this is due to what they represented. He was part of a generation of youth in the inner city so many of whose lives were destroyed as a function of the successive epidemics of heroin, angel dust, crack, methamphetamine and other drugs – either being killed, going to jail, or like Wesley, simply being in the wrong place at the wrong time. He also represents that abstraction mentioned above – to the outside world looking in, just one more Black boy killed in the city. Nellie represented (to me) the infinite string of Black mothers who work hard to keep their sons alive, let alone assist in their growth and development for successful, meaningful lives. It reminded me of a poem by Langston Hughes, where he wrote, “I nourished the dream that nothing could smother; Deep in my heart – the Negro mother.” But Nellie, still breathing but dead within, had but one son, and they took her life in that public housing elevator as well as his. My eyes did well up a bit. It is my sense that others will be impacted the same way by stories that relate to experiences in their lives as well (my first generation of children, now in their fifties, grew up in the South Bronx in the crack period, and thankfully survived).
Admittedly, I did struggle a bit trying to keep up with some of the characters. It was not just the Chinese names, but their nicknames and/or family designations. But I would not change this approach, as it adds to the book’s cultural relevance. After a while I just continued to read and with context it all came together and made sense.
Interestingly, interspersed throughout there are metaphysical aspects to the story. After a while, it seemed that moments of introspection would lead to an interaction with ancestors emanating from a puddle. This was entertaining and made sense as it added to the theme of root shock and the disorientation experienced by the ancestors of a majority of Americans whose relatives emigrated here to face discrimination, employment scarcity, strange customs, dangerous jobs, inadequate housing, violence, and language barriers. For most, there was no going back, except in their minds.
Then there is the ending. Don’t hope for some miraculous victory of the people over the forces of profit and exploitation. This is a novel, but it reads like a historical account transformed into a beautifully written book. So it is meant to be real, and because of this, the main battle is lost, and the community is forced to settle for crumbs. But how else could it have ended – for now? But in the very last sentence, the author travels in her mind to an alternate universe, one suggesting a merging of Proudhonian anarchism and Iroquois communal governance. Maybe that will be her next novel, and just maybe an actual future experience for an upcoming generation of local leaders.
This is a great read and I strongly recommend this book