Life. Is. Not. Fair

by Gary W. Bargar

Louis and his aunt are startled and upset when a Black family moves next door to their Kansas City home in 1958, but Louis soon recognizes that his new neighbor is a more reliable friend than the group of junior high cools with whom he had hoped to be friends.

Genres: Fiction

174 pages, Hardcover

First published March 1, 1984

Reviews

[slauderdale]

I was reading What Happened to Mr. Forster? via the Internet Archive and was also interested in this book, the only other novel Bargar published before his untimely death a year later, likewise available digitally by way of the Internet Archive. So I clicked on it after reading the first book, and imagine my surprise to discover that it is a direct sequel to "What Happened to Mr. Forster?" An alternate title could be "What Happened to Louis Lamb?" since Louis is also the protagonist in this book. My assumption is that some elements of these books, at least, are biographical since Bargar would have been about the same age as Louis in the years (1959-1960), and his hometown was also Kansas City, Missouri. To what degree is, of course, speculative. I imagine if Bargar had lived he would have continued to write about Louis, so it was sad to finish this one and know there would not be another. I was invested in Louis.

Some strengths in this book:
- A much better cover than the first book (Ted Lewin did both.)
- Louis becomes a more active agent in his own life.
- And so does Ellie.
- An evocative last paragraph, which hearkens back to Louis' earlier thought about God being "partial to a big storm."

Some cons:
- The Flanderization of Aunt Zona. She was religious, conservative, loving and a little bit silly in the first book (Paul called her "kind of a crackerbox" in there), but she was believable. In this book, I don't know. Her racism is cartoonish and depressing and her attempted candy business is cartoonish and alarming. I thought she and Louis were going to end up on the street. Although it did make me want to eat divinities.
- I don't like the fact that the book just ends with DeWitt in the hospital but without Louis seeing him again at least once. Both boys didn't need to be there in the same scene at the end, this is ultimately Louis' story, not DeWitt's, but he should at least have seen him before the book ended.
- Paul is disappointing, but then, Paul has disappointed us before. e_e