The Newspaper Boy

by Chervis Isom

The Newspaper Boy is a remarkable collection of memories and personal reflections of the deep emotional conflicts a young newspaper delivery boy, Chervis Isom, encountered while growing up in Birmingham, Alabama, in a time of racial strife and discord in the 1950s and early ’60s. A quiet and shy boy, the young Isom was a reader, and it would be the written word he would turn to as he tried to make sense of his world.

Many of Isom’s stories are tied to the “Southern Way of Life,” a culture in which he grew up that assumed an inflexible white superiority represented by Jim Crow laws, laws that his father, a Greyhound Bus driver, was obligated to enforce in the face of a rising reaction by his African American riders that he neither understood nor tolerated. Isom’s early adolescent views, shaped by his father’s frustrations, are thrown into stark contrast as he is drawn to the positive influence of Helen and Vern Miller, a young couple from the Far North who moved onto his paper route, bringing with them alien ideas completely out of step with his own culture and teachings. Even though the Millers’ views would clash with his own, they quickly became his favorite customers. Each Saturday they opened their door to him at collection time, inviting him in to politely discuss and debate the day’s issues.

Through the Millers’ progressive approach to the growing racial unrest in Birmingham in the mid-to late-1950s, the young Isom gradually learned, in a series of fits and starts, advances and setbacks, to question the prevailing cultural attitudes and biases towards the African American community. In the end, he would come to understand the simple truth, as expressed by Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., that people must be judged not “by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.”

Isom’s narrative tells the story of good, church-going Southern people bound up in the Jim Crow culture of their time, completely ignorant of the African American experience. It tells of the value of hard work and education and the importance of the written word to change us for the better. His story is replete with his gratitude to the Millers, who took the time and effort to lead him to a better place, to Abe Berkowitz, who saw in Isom something he had not seen in himself and the man who would one day become his law partner, and finally to his father, as he belatedly came to recognize the importance of his father’s role in making him into the man he turned out to be.

This book shows how a single person (or a couple in the case of the Millers) might, in a quiet and unobtrusive manner, set a young person’s life on a higher arc; how it falls to each of us to use our own talents to lead young people to embrace the “better angels of our nature.”

Isom’s story is set in Birmingham, in an urban neighborhood known as Norwood, and stresses the vital role that “community” plays in our human development, and our need to continually rebuild and revitalize our communities.

And finally, while this is the story of a young man coming of age in a difficult time and place, the author is now seventy-four years of age. His story has been written from the perspective of a man who now appreciates the journey that brought him to this time and place, and who eagerly anticipates the life that yet lies before him and the mission he has carved out for his own future.

-From thenewspaperboy.net

359 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2013

Reviews

[Joywillowwritesgmail.Com]

It's top notch--- from hardcover to jacket. I love the cover and inside photo. I like the way he used a blank page to separate the chapters. I liked the different font at the beginning of each sentence, in each chapter.
The technique of fonts changing reflected the change in the boy and time, which held my interest.
The book cover font is bold, beautiful, and classic. It grabs my attention.
The subtle, nostalgic cover colors and pictures lead me back in time. With each sitting, I was eager to pick up where I had left off and hear of the growth and maturity of "Sonny" Isom.
I appreciated Isom's honesty about being nervous, and all the other human emotions that arise in our adolescence and that sometimes: stays with us forever.
As I expected (since Isom is an English major and attorney) "The Newpaper Boy," is well written.
The genre and era is similar to John Grisham's " A Painted House."
While the creative licensing in punctuation kept my attention, that was not what intrigued me-----It was Isom's raw exposure of himself.
And it was his admirable work ethic at such a young man, and Isom's desire to work hard; sacrifice the freedoms of a carefree adolescence; save his hard earned money; commitment to his job and his patrons, as well as, his Southern gentleman manners as an adolescent. These are the things that made Isom different from the others in the elements which he was exposed. He sought knowledge and he applied wisdom. This intrigued me.
It took a lot of courage then and takes a lot if courage now--- not to be racist or judgmental.
I admire his qualities as a humanitarian and how he used his own experiences to reshape his thinking and to apply and express it in written form so that others may follow his example.
I appreciate his courage to share his experience with the world, as his true story.
It was a wonderful read.
Do I recommend it?
Yes.
I highly recommend it to the Baby Boomers and history teachers alike.
It is wholesome, historic and educational. I was move, touched and inspired.

[Rick B. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Simply outstanding! A book that should be required reading for all students (and adults) in America. An honest and refreshingly forthright book about a young man opening his mind and heart to ideas beyond those he was raised to believe. Definitely one the best personal narratives that I've ever read.

[Ben Smith · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good read along side "Go set a Watchman" about another kid growing up in Birmingham at that time who grew up to be a lawyer with one of the firms that was important in the Civil Rights struggle in Birmingham.

[Joseph · Rating 5 out of 5]

"The Newspaper Boy" is remarkably honest document about the author's growing up in the Civil Rights Era. Much of the book is about race relations, but there are enough personal experiences that have nothing to do with race relations, but do have to do with growing up.

This is one of those books everyone should read.

I stayed up to 5:15 a.m. to finish reading it if that gives you an idea of how interesting I found the book.

[Ford McMurtry · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved everything about this slice of life look at life in Birmingham, Alabama during the 1950s and 60s. Isom has a way of telling the tale that makes you feel like you are there in his living room. Highly recommended. This captures a child’s coming of age in an important era in Birmingham history.

[Sue DeWalt · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent book. I learned so much about my adopted city, Birmingham, and its struggles over the years. This book makes you reflect on what is truly important in life.

[Betty · Rating 5 out of 5]

Written in a very straightforward style, as if he were telling it to you in person. Clearly an unassuming and admirable man who describes growing up in Birmingham during the 1950s and 1960s.

[Christy Faulk · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent book on Birmingham history. Everyone should read this book. It was written by my dad’s friend.

[Bill Dawson · Rating 5 out of 5]

A most interesting and accurate account of a difficult period. He was most fortunate to meet people who helped change him into the thoughtful fellow he is. Knowing him, I have no doubt that he would have seen the light anyway once higher education took hold.

[Jon · Rating 5 out of 5]

My friend Chervis Isom died in France within the last month. Missing him, I picked up my copy of The Newspaper Boy, and starting back in from the front, trying to imagine his' voice reading it to me. It is a clear-eyed , unequivocally honest account of Birmingham, Alabama and a boy growing up influenced by that. The text moves through an angry and violent, racist Birmingham, through the lens of a boy who grew up in that mindset, and how he changed and became the Chervis Isom that I knew. I found it really helpful, to read Chervis' book, again do it right. For all you poets, is it not true that we can set out to write, maybe bleed a little on the page, but some very real piece of us is left behind on the page, when we do it right? There is some cost, in the alchemy of real-izing what is in our heart, our head, onto paper. Or speech. Like reading Chervis Isom's"The Newspaper Boy."