Matt Snediker’s Reviews > Another Country > Status Update

“For all policemen were bright enough to know who they were working for, and they were not working, anywhere in the world, for the powerless.”

Shit yeh bruther I didn’t think we’d get some stray bullets in the ACAB direction but ofc, if it came any way, it would come as effortlessly, with as much infinite wisdom, with as much certainty as this quote. He’s so fuckin good dude oh my GOD.

“I know that I am not about to be bugged by any more white jokers who still can’t figure out whether I’m human or not. If they don’t know, baby, sad on them, and I hope they drop dead slowly, in great pain.”
“That’s not very Christian,” he said, lightly.
“It’s the best I can do. I learned all my Christianity from white folks.”

Baldwin’s dialogue is so exacting, so sharp, so subtly poetic.

“The number ended and Ida stepped off the stage, wet and triumphant, the applause crashing about her ears like foam.”

He just doesn’t quit with the purple stuff, I swear

Every sex scene in this book is an incantation, and the spell it conjures gives the effect of shimmering black powder floating on the face of a warm, onyxite ocean, lit sharply and brilliantly by a white cold moon, that moves you around, gently, at random, until the whispering is over, and you’re back in your seat, reading your book.

It’s so fascinating how Baldwin is doing this thing of interlacing Eric’s dialogue with Rufus-isms whenever he’s feeling especially confident. That method of subtle, brilliant characterization like that is the kind of thing that comes to you in the middle of a free write and you run around the room celebrating. And Baldwin has one of these like every other page. It’s insane.