The One Who's Gonna See You Through

GJ's family is an anomaly. Samuel, his uneducated strongman father, respected for his brawn and violent aggression, acts as a conscientious, nurturing single parent, rearing his infant son in the 1950s when men were not their children's primary caregivers. Despite his father's typical Black masculinity, he intuitively understands his son's emerging gay nature as innate. GJ's mother, a child of Black middle-class privilege from the neighboring suburbs, is an absent parent, primarily engaged with living the rooming life, consisting of drink and abandon.GJ's young life progresses, and he is thrust forth into circumstances both familiar and violently surreal, from typical bullying to standing as the principal witness in a murder trial to defend his father. Colorful characters like wild Uncle NapPo, the seemingly unflappable Miss Carrie, and his father's employer, the curious Mr. Blu, inform him of life's complexity.The wide-eyed boy grows into his teens and twenties and is altogether victi