Dear Martin effectively dismantles the idea that any amount of personal success can shield someone from racism; what the novel fails to do, by focusing on Justyce’s elite education and bright future, is engage how King’s lessons hold up for people without those opportunities or motivation. And subsequently, who is considered "worthy" of attention, of power. Justyce—a star scholarship student at the mostly white Braselton Preparatory Academy in Atlanta, who dreams of attending Yale the following year—doesn’t say much after the incident. For me, point of view follows the subject matter. In many ways, Stone sees herself in Justyce, but she also made a considerable effort to capture not only what it's like to be a black teenager on the cusp of manhood, but how they talk to one another. I am an outliner who plots to death. Anissa Hidouk / Nigel Livingstone / Katie Martin / The Atlantic. He's president of the debate team. 5 things a personal essay needs to succeed (and sell). Read 2 569 reviews from the world's largest community fo… Stone experienced, and was accused of, the same thing. During waves of national outrage over the deaths of unarmed black men, many people have reflexively asked, What would Dr. King do if he were alive today? In one scene, he's accused by a white classmate of lying about his SAT scores. Dear Martin by Nic Stone was originally published in 2017. “In that moment when I thought I was dying, it hit me: Despite how good of a dude Martin was, they still killed him,” Justyce says to a teacher, reflecting on the shooting. The most well-known example, and perhaps the most relevant to Dear Martin, is Angie Thomas’s bestselling The Hate U Give, which was longlisted for a National Book Award this year. I’m pretty sure that will continue for me. With her debut novel, Dear Martin, author Nic Stone brought readers the powerful story of the challenges faced by Justyce McAllister, a black Ivy League-bound teenager who’s falsely accused of stealing a car by the local police force. The Black Lives Matter movement, which began partly in response to police brutality, is often compared to the civil-rights era. "Reading this relieved some of my anger," he wrote. I think there’s something very powerful about the ages of 12-18. Nearly 50 years after King’s assassination, these novels force readers to grapple with the evolution of the struggle for civil rights, and collectively seem to question whether there ever was—or is—a single “right” way to attain equality at all. To Stone or her character Justyce, it might be more relevant to ask if he’d think the same way that he did in the ’60s. The Tiger Rising book. An encounter Justyce has with Manny’s cousin Quan—whom he visits in prison, seeking an alternative salve to his letters—muddies the idealism that has carried him through most of the novel. “I thought if I made sure to be an upstanding member of society, I’d be exempt from the stuff THOSE black guys deal with,” he writes the next day, describing a “thuggish” teenager who was killed by a police officer earlier in the summer. Racism, economic inequality, big questions. I tried to write a lighthearted book, but it didn’t work. “America’s a pretty colorblind place,” one student claims, only to seemingly imply in the next breath that Justyce got into Yale because of affirmative action. "Black boys arenât a monolith" she says. A student of Jodi Picoult, Stone crafted what reviewers are calling a "gripping" tale that is loosely based on recent events surrounding the shooting deaths of unarmed black teens. I outline each book in a composition notebook. It’s a checklist that many black parents impart to their sons long before these teenagers know they’ll need the advice. But because she had sold her book as a proposal, rather than a finished product, Stone says she was writing and researching simultaneously over an intense, eight-week period. Dear Martin belongs to a growing body of young-adult literature exploring racial injustice and police brutality from a teen perspective. People watch Justyce, as opposed to being all in his head. But the book’s protagonist, Starr, shares broader similarities to Justyce, too. Even then, there was some friction among leaders who had different ideologies about the road to overcoming racism. Dear Martin by Nic Stone, $12, Amazon "I had to find out the hard way that there’s no 'earning' your way out of racism, that no level of achievement would make me immune," says Stone. "Because I felt seen. Stone's debut novel, Dear Martin, shadows Southern high schooler Justyce McCallister through a year bookended by racially motivated violence. Justyce is grappling with the recognition that his achievements don’t separate him from the burdens of racism as much as he’d thought they would. I typically use my writing to explore things in the world that I want to get a better understanding of. At the same time that many young people are turning to different forms of activism to find their voices, authors of color are proving that there is an appetite for stories that elevate voices that are often systemically ignored. It's a book, and a lesson, she wishes she had had in her own era of teenhood. After graduating from Spelman College, she worked extensively in teen mentoring and lived in Israel for a few years before returning to the US to write full-time. All rights reserved. “Where I come from, resistance is existence, homie,” Quan says. Martin Luther King Jr. after experiencing police brutality firsthand. I build the outline and then write a draft. Though she couldn't relay much, Stone says it centers around a love triangle and explores the question of who we're allowed to love. Keep up with current events in the writing world. We want to hear what you think about this article. Nonfiction is supposed to drive home a point. My third novel will be out in 2019, but I wrote it in 2015. "When I started writing, it was a way to understand my own adolescence, and what came out was a revelation about my own teenage years.". Recent headlines also echo through Thomas’s The Hate U Give, which was influenced by the fatal shooting of Oscar Grant, 22, by a police officer in Oakland in 2009. And while Justyce is drawn to King’s teachings of resilience and nonviolence, he is put increasingly on edge as he observes the failures of the world around him. Long before she’s swept up in demonstrations, her father “Big Mav,” a former gang member, diligently taught Starr and her siblings about the Black Panthers. It’s from these letters that the novel derives its title. There is character development and plot, and that switch can be tricky. I wrote my second book while I was waiting for notes on Dear Martin, so I’ve always been working on the next thing. At some point, I’m sure I’ll have an adult short story collection. Most young adult books have a compact storyline that takes a character from a distinct starting point to a distinct ending point, usually over a year at most. Nic Stone’s debut novel, “Dear Martin,” tells the story of an African-American teen who writes letters to the Rev. Desperate to make sense of being a black teenager in the current political climate, Justyce begins writing letters to the spirit of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. “Last I checked, your way got you capped and Manny killed.” By positioning Quan’s choices as antithetical to Justyce’s, the scene suggests that the characters striving for goodness (even if that effort is futile) are the ones most deserving of the reader’s compassion. She points to a particular Goodreads review, from a black teenager named Ezra as evidence of these "humbling" reactions. The question of when and how to speak up for yourself or let things go recurs throughout Dear Martin. 2015’s All American Boys by Jason Reynolds and Brendan Kiely followed a black high-school student beaten by a cop who mistakes him for a shoplifter. I fill it in with notes, character names, and put it in order. At this point, Stone doesn't see a dominant narrative within YA, and for her next book, she plans on continuing the trend of untold stories. This plays out in almost exactly the same way in her book, when an off-duty police officer pulls up next to Justyce and his friend Manny at a traffic light, starting an argument over the volume of their music that quickly escalates. Again, Justyce is reminded that both teens’ efforts to “do right” don’t, ultimately, shield them. A simple question—What would Martin do if he were alive?—guides the novel’s protagonist throughout his senior year, as he encounters everything from his white classmates’ racism (down to one guy dressing up as a Klansman for Halloween) to police profiling. Being inside his head is like recognizing in real-time that teenage awkwardness is far from the only thing that a 17-year-old black student has to overcome. In fiction, you need more nuance, buried in layers. Some writers stumble upon inspiration. Nic Stone was born and raised in a suburb of Atlanta, GA, and the only thing she loves more than an adventure is a good story about one. The New York Times bestseller also gained attention when it was named as a finalist for the William C. Morris award. Coming out of the crucible of the past few years—during which young people have been integral to pushing conversations about the unjustified killings of black men to the forefront—the novels capture the many ways that teens of color cope with prejudice, whether through activism or personal accountability or protest. In an effort to process his struggles, Justyce writes a series of letters to the late Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Dear Martin is written largely in the third person, but the letters are done using a first-person POV, a blend that works perfectly for the narrative. People watch Justyce, as opposed to being all in his head. When I started writing, it was a way to understand my own adolescence, and what came out was a revelation about my own teenage years. Nic Stone's poignant and timely Dear Martin hit the ground running on Amazon this past week, trending #1 in the YA literature category. At first, Justyce’s judgment is palpable. Angie Thomas and Nic Stone are among the novelists addressing police brutality from a teen perspective. ", She is quick to point out, though, that Dear Martin is the story of one boy: Justyce. The fast pace of dealing with things makes good storytelling fodder. In The Hate U Give, having to testify at a grand-jury trial leads Starr to protest, though it’s not the first she’s learned of alternative modes of activism. For both, the emotional labor of code switching between their “two worlds”—the elite schools where they’re surrounded by privilege and the mostly black neighborhoods where they grew up—looms large in their lives.