A Most Beautiful Thing

 Hi.

It's been a while since I've done a book review for you, and the one I have for you now--the book is so good I've had to sit with it a while.  People who do a lot of text ingestion, aka reading, for work purposes know you have to really change your mindset to enjoy reading for pleasure again.  Irony, I know.  But when you have to read reviews, reports, e-mails, gulp down information for easy mental access later...to slow down and let an author's voice into your consciousness becomes a much more deliberate act.  And it is getting rarer that I have the ability to do that easily.  But when you have a writer like Arshay Cooper bring you his story, well...

I came across this book because I recently joined athlete and entrepreneur Steph Curry's bookclub on Literati, which is called Underrated.https://literati.com/book-clubs/stephen-curry/  This was the first book I received.  If you aren't tuned into the Bay Area or national basketball scene, Steph Curry for the Bay Area is like Michael Jordan was to Chicago in the 90s.  Unparalled, iconic, an athletic force so great that the skill and talent and knowledge of the sport is obvious to someone who last touched a basketball in 1986.  Beyond Curry's athleticism, he is a community maker and I thought heck yeah I'm in when I read about his book club.

Cooper's book is about his experience growing up as a young black man in Chicago, attending public schools and being recruited on to a high school rowing team, which turned out to become the first all black high school rowing team.  I leave to your enjoyment of the book the story of how this came to be.  What I want to focus on is what he says about the sport and some of the ways he relates to it.  When writing about pushing his through pain towards the end a race, he writes "I have felt pain all my life; it's my normal. (155).  

That line had me in tears. A few pages later he recalls "After a race, your whole body starts to malfunction, particularly your back.  I hate being tardy, so I am speed walking in pain to school."  To give you a bit of context, he's walking on the paved streets of Chicago, known for its ridiculously long blocks.  And I don't recall much mention in this book that (as my lived experience) in Chicago the weather is hateful 75% of the time.  Freezing in winter, muggy moist in summer, maybe 8 days each fall and spring where walking isn't a chore.  But his focus in this book isn't his personal discomforts, it is how he and his teammates rise to and meet the challenges, which range from disrespectful behavior from competitors to facing deeply held fears about water and swimming.

There are moments when he describes racing that I felt I was right there on the boat with him.  He shares the jokes and stories of his teammates, you meet his family and learn about how he lives.  He shares his hopes for love, his concerns about his friends,  his awkward relationship with his father, the experience of disappointing a coach.  In short, he doesn't hold back in opening up his heart and his life.

How do you do this, Mr. Cooper?  To know yourself and your story so well to be able to reveal yourself at the center of the huge sociological storm that is Chicago? He does, and writes of it and his hopes and dreams not only for himself but his teammates and his friends.  

We take the talents of our young people for granted in America.  There is a systematic reduction of opportunities for young people of color, in particular.  It shouldn't need proving that young black people are wells of talent, but in a country where young black men and women--Mike Brown, George Floyd, Breanna Taylor, Armaud Arbery--have been murdered in cold blood, we need to hear and recognize not just the humanity but the wellspring of talent that should be supported and realized.  So bring this book along with you to share with people who don't live in Chicago, who don't know young black people, who need the chance to move on from the murky veil of fear fanned by racism. 

America and sports...whooo, the problems that we could talk about!  Sports should not be the only way young people can distinguish themselves and learn the pleasure of mastering challenges. But this book brings up the most important aspect, which is that a group sport can build so many dimensions of personal and social emotional growth.  It can be a gateway to travel, to new experiences.  It can teach people to rely on themselves and others.  

Give yourself the gift of this book, Arshay Cooper's A Most Beautiful Thing, published by Flatiron Books.  May I insist you purchase it from your local independent bookstore, or bookshop.org?  Thank you. 

So that's my book review, friends. Just a few quick thoughts before singing off since it has been so long since I wrote you.  Joe Biden and Kamala Harris have been declared the winners of the 2020 election, and even more than Christmas and New Year's I am looking forward to their inaugeration.  A vaccine for C19 has been developed by multiple companies and is being delivered and distributed.  We've got a long way to go before Inaugeration Day and more people get the necessary two doses of the vaccine, so please...keep wearing your masks, washing your hands, and practice being a homebody.