It's a Cold, Cold Winter

Continuing the books-from-the-senior-book-recommendation-list, I finished The Coldest Winter Ever by Sister Souljah the other night.

In a nutshell, it's about Winter, a ghetto princess who loses her privilege and protection when her drug king father is ultimately busted by the cops. Half the story describes either Winter's shopping sprees or her sexual exploits, since those are the only illusions that can make her happy. But they're not described in any titillating or sensual detail. Souljah writes in Winter's Brooklyn vernacular. She lists things as they happen, with no poetry or lyrical style. Just the bare facts, in one teenger's voice.

Then there's the weird insertion of the author into the story. Throughout the book, Winter hears Sister Souljah on the radio, picks up flyers for a Sister Souljah event, and is referred to a Sister Souldjah discussion group by a friend. Eventually Sister Souljah, as a character in her own story, takes Winter under her wing, exposes her to critical thinking, affairs of the mind, etc. This is the point where the reader thinks Winter will turn her life around. But she doesn't. She's too easily distracted by money and sex, and loses sight of friends, family, and community. The girl is straight up cold in her relations and dealings with other people; she approaches everything and everyone as a business venture to see what she can get from them. She falls in with an up-and-coming drug dealer, and ends up in jail by the age of 18.

I just thought it was a little odd to write yourself into your own book like that, as a beacon of hope for a little ghetto superstar who winds up serving time because she won't listen to you. I was thinking this might be a parallel to hip-hop music, where artists write themselves into their own lyrics.

In all, The Coldest Winter Ever wasn't a great book, and I didn't think it was particularly well-written. I couldn't relate to the main character, and I found myself unable to empathize with her, either. (Your family's belongings have been confiscated by the police, you're technically homeless, you have limited funds availalble, and you go shopping for designer gear every other day???) And yet I couldn't stop reading the book! I didn't particularly care what happened to Winter; I just wanted to see how she'd draw on her street smarts to get out of the messes life kept throwing her. But she doesn't, and ultimately the point is that she can't. Sister Souljah so drastically took the rags-to-riches American "dream" and tore it down: Winter's riches-to-rags nightmare isn't first and foremost a commentary on the state of the inner city. It's a portrait of how money, sex, and beauty are fleeting, and therefore so are any human connections based on them.

It's the first book from the '01 book recommendation list that I've liked somewhat!