J'irai cracher sur vos tombes

I get the concept and it's a good concept, a black man during Jim Crow America uses the fact that he's white-passing to exact revenge on white society after the lynching of his brother. In the preface Vian makes a point that many white-passing black people use this as a privilege to live as white people instead of avenging their societies from within, which is why this book exists. Boris Vian wrote the book under the name “Vernon Sullivan” a supposed black american, but really it feels like it's a caricature of America, like how you imagine the US after watching a few film noir movies. I think that's where the french got their Nouvelle Vague vibe from, and it's also obvious how the french cared more about social justice in America than the white americans ever did.

The fact that Jazz and later rock n roll reached europe before it did white america, and how french people believed america needed to have race equality to prove that it's the “new world” they were all promised, lead to these kinds of books being written by French people (a bit delusional when you know america was built on genocide, but it's a concept i find in many french thinkers from Hugo to Verne and later Vian). Also during that time african american artists would leave to France, feeling there the freedom they never did find in the US (James Baldwin spoke about this). Same with how Rock n Roll reached europe before white america and that it lead to the “british invasion” couple decades later.

Moving on, about the book though, there was just too much graphic sexual scenes with minors and continuous sexual assaults, that a feeling of nausea stayed with me throughout the reading. I think this is part of what i referenced as the american caricature, the book's first half did not need to be mostly about an adult sleeping with drunk teens.

The bigger disappointment though was the fact that the writer basically skipped the reveal of the revenge, which made the whole book senseless. What's the point of a revenge story when the writer doesn't write the reaction of the people getting destroyed, and the why. When the avenger faces off with his victims and explains his reasons. Maybe the author wanted to show that there is no satisfaction with revenge? But that would be in contradiction of the book's concept. Anyway, important book to know about culturally, but was a bit disappointing, i'm not sad i read it though.

**i did really much enjoy the preface of Boris Vian writing about Sullivan's writing style and his genius as if he's not waxing lyrical about himself. He must've really enjoyed that bit.