The first gives instructions on how to build a bomb. In the novel, two leaflets circulate as potential paths to an equitable and just society. There’s the chillingly familiar racial unrest, down to a shooting that incites protests. Some people aspire to own houses, while others own entire buildings. There’s the expansion of empire and wealth. There’s a delight in taking down powerful people who believed themselves invulnerable to consequences. Set 60 years ago, the novel nonetheless has a number of parallels to our time. In one or two sentences at the end of a chapter, Whitehead can change the book’s whole trajectory. The novel gains force through accumulation and acceleration – brake and gas, gas and brake, until we are far from where we started. The three acts could make satisfying novellas on their own, but they’re better together. What’s our responsibility to the greater social good? The three parts present our options: descent, personal advancement, social progress. “The mistake was to believe he’d become someone else.” Act 3 considers whether a man should step up to help others. We could call this the illusion of advancement we all get suckered into it. Act 2 considers Carney’s upward criminal climb. Act 1 shows how easily a man can step downward into crime. The novel is structured in three instalments, covering a period from 1959 to 1964, each climactically peaking with criminal activity.
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