Hell of a Book

This chapter is written in the first-person perspective of an unnamed narrator. He is the protagonist of all alternating, even-numbered chapters. It is three in the morning, and the narrator is sprinting naked down the hallway in a fancy Midwestern hotel. He is being chased by a large man with a coat hanger. From the man’s neat attire, the narrator assumes he is a suburban family man. The man is angry because the narrator slept with his wife. He yells after the narrator, who is concerned that he’ll catch up to him at the elevator. Just then, the elevator doors open to reveal a small, elderly woman with thick makeup and blue hair. She doesn’t hold the elevator as the narrator calls out to her, but he makes it through the closing doors just in time. The two share an awkward silence, which reminds the narrator of his old job answering phones. He strikes up small talk with the woman and they chat about the chaos of life and his pubic shaving habits. Then, she asks if he heard about the recent incident with a boy. The narrator pretends he has, and she replies that it’s a shame. They are silent until he reaches his floor. When he is halfway down the hall, she remarks that he seems familiar. He gets to his hotel room and realizes he forgot his keys in his pants.

The narrator goes to the hotel front desk to request a spare key. When the hotel staff requests identification, the narrator grabs a nearby copy of Entertainment Weekly with his face on the cover page. He is an author currently on a book tour. The magazine is insufficient as ID, so the receptionist accompanies him to his room to see more proof. They flirt in the elevator, and the narrator is unsure whether it’s real or imagined. He has a condition where he daydreams often but cannot control when they happen or clearly distinguish them from reality. He and the receptionist have sex that night, and he thinks he loves her. The next morning the receptionist has left a cordial note and the narrator no longer believes it was love he felt. Still, he is content. 

At breakfast downstairs, a nerdy-looking, ten-year-old boy (The Kid) comes over and sits with the narrator, who reflects that the child’s skin is startlingly black. The narrator stares at The Kid’s skin as he eats. The television is playing the news report of a boy who was shot and killed, until someone changes the channel. When the narrator asks The Kid why he’s come, The Kid explains that he has wanted to talk to him for a while. The narrator notices a southern drawl in the boy’s speech. Something about the boy, who is “impossibly dark-skinned”, both draws the narrator in and repulses him. Ready to depart, the narrator offers a pleasant goodbye to which the boy responds that he simply wanted the narrator to see him. Back in his hotel room, the narrator drifts asleep. He envisions The Kid grinning with bright white teeth; he pities the boy for being so dark-skinned in this unkind world.

Chapter 3 returns to the third person and the little boy from Chapter 1, who is now ten years old. The kids nickname him Soot. To avoid negative attention, he still tries to be unseen, keeping quiet and alone. However, sometimes Tyrone Greene bullies him on the bus. Tyrone is an eighth grader who is big and muscular because he works on his father’s farm. He is also a light-skinned Black boy. Tyrone sits beside Soot and acts friendly. He makes Soot shake his hand and insist that they are friends. The other kids gather to watch the teasing they know is coming. 

Soot wishes he could turn invisible like he did when he was five years old. His parents keep encouraging him to access invisibility by closing his eyes and becoming unseen. Neither of his parents can turn invisible, but they insist that he must learn to be safe. On the bus, Tyrone makes fun of how dark Soot’s skin, comparing him to engine oil and asking if he sweats coffee. He asks Soot repeatedly why he is so black. The other kids all laugh while Soot cries. Satisfied and disgusted by Soot’s tears, Tyrone leaves to the back of the bus. That night, Soot’s sobbing wakes his father. His father comforts him and explains that he must learn to love himself. They fall asleep together in Soot’s bed.

Chapter 4 returns to the first-person narrator from Chapter 2. He introduces himself to the reader as an author. His latest book is titled Hell of a Book, and it is very successful. The narrator grew up in a small town in North Carolina, with a skinny father and a short, round mother. Growing up, he was awkward and a loner. He was fourteen years old when he decided to become a writer, although he wasn’t very good at it. At that age he was also diagnosed with his daydreaming condition, which worried his parents. No treatments worked, so he learned to just not talk about his hallucinations. 

Before the success of his novel, he worked many different customer service jobs, including one at a major phone company’s call center in North Carolina. One day he gets a call from a Brooklyn woman checking her phone records because she suspects that her husband is unfaithful. He assures her that everything looks normal, and they engage in small talk. Though this call is pleasant, most are not. For this reason, the employee turnover rate is high. The company creates The Culture Crew: a group of cheery corporate employees whose role is to distribute treats and boost office morale. After the call, his coworker Sean comes over. Sean, an atheist, is regretting his relationship with a passionate Christian woman from The Culture Crew. Sean asks about the narrator’s draft manuscript for Hell of a Book; so far, it is still a mess. 

In the present day, the narrator’s therapist advises him to write down memories to help him stay grounded in reality. However, the narrator does not like reality because it is overwhelmingly negative. The therapist attributes his condition to some trauma, but the narrator disagrees, as there is none that he can think of. While he is unbothered by the overlap between reality and imagination in his life, the therapist warns that it will tear him apart.

Soot and his father William are at a rest home in Whiteville visiting Soot’s ailing grandfather, Daddy Henry. William hates his father; Soot does not understand this because Daddy Henry is always kind to Soot and tells fantastic stories about the past. Daddy Henry mentions how William used to be good at drawing. This is a sensitive topic for William, and he is resistant to discuss it. However, Daddy Henry pushes the subject. He directs Soot to a box that holds old family photos, as well as many beautiful, photorealistic drawings. William is upset now, but Daddy Henry dismisses his anger. William is ashamed of the drawings because they are all of white people. Daddy Henry stopped him from drawing Black people because he did not believe those drawings were worthwhile or profitable. Eventually, William quit drawing and blamed Daddy Henry for making him hate Black skin. However, Daddy Henry blames his son for that and for abandoning what could have been a promising career. Upset, William starts to leave with Soot. Daddy Henry pleads with him not to take Soot away because there is more he wants to teach him and more stories he wants to tell. Daddy Henry encourages Soot to write stories someday but advises that they not be about Black people. As Soot and William leave, Daddy Henry tries to go after them, but he is too ill to stand. That is the last time Soot sees his grandfather. Soot has many questions for his father on the drive home, but he keeps silent and squeezes his father’s hand.

The narrator lands in San Francisco for the next leg of his book tour. He is hungover and sleepy from a wild night. In the airport he is met by his limousine driver, an older East Asian man named Renny. Though Renny calls the narrator racist for repeatedly calling him “Lenny” (mishearing his “R” as an “L”), Renny is very excited to be meeting this author whom he admires. When the narrator gets into the limousine, The Kid is there, but only the narrator can see him. With the limo partition up, the narrator is sure that The Kid is a hallucination. The Kid, however, insists that he is real and just has the power to turn invisible. Soon, the narrator falls asleep.

Renny strikes up a conversation with the narrator, who quickly gets drunk from the limousine mini bar. They discuss the day’s itinerary of seven interviews and a bookstore event. By the sixth interview, the narrator is drunk, but Renny helps him make his way inside. In the studio, the receptionist has made an elaborate artistic rendering on Post-It Notes fixed to her wall of a castle. After the interview, the narrator moves in and out of consciousness in the limousine. He vomits out the window but keeps his suit clean.

As Renny helps him out of the car for the bookstore event, a large group of protesters pass by. The group is made up primarily of young Black people protesting anti-Black violence. Renny remarks about how unfortunate recent events have been, and he asks the narrator what he thinks. He has nothing to say, but Renny insists that he must because he is African American. This fact surprises the narrator; he never knew before that he was Black. He thinks back over his life and can only vaguely see that it is true. This confounds Renny, who believes the narrator has a duty as a Black writer to write about the Black experience. The narrator is excited and curious about his new discovery. When they get inside the bookstore, he sees large images of his face, confirming for him that he is Black. The doors close on the distant sound of the passing protest. The narrator is not concerned about justice and politics, only his book sales.