BLUEBIRD, BLUEBIRD by Attica Locke

BLUEBIRD, BLUEBIRD

by

Attica Locke

            Bluebird, Bluebird, by Attica Locke, won the 2018 Edgar Award for Best Novel. The book is about Darren Mathews, an African American Texas Ranger who had quit law school, after two years at the University of Chicago, in order to join law enforcement.

At the start of the book, Mathews is testifying before the grand jury, concerning a friend who is charged with murder, and is facing a suspension from the Rangers. After he hears about the murders of a black man and a white woman in an east Texas town, Mathews inserts himself into the investigation.

            I did not like Bluebird, Bluebird. In fact, my kneejerk reaction was that I hated this book. This response was twofold.

First, my intense negative reaction arose in part from the nature of the book. Despite winning the Edgar Award, Bluebird, Bluebird is not so much a murder mystery as it is a book about race; its murder mystery aspect is secondary. I do not like reading books about racial tensions (just like I do not like reading books dealing with the holocaust). In this aspect, I did not enjoy this book in that it was very uncomfortable. But, perhaps that means that it was successful and worthy of the Edgar. In addition, having lived in Houston for over twenty-five years, I do not believe that east Texas is as racially problematic as the book portrays. It is not that east Texas is free of racism; but, the picture painted by the book is reminiscent of pre-civil rights era times. Although there are undoubtedly individuals in east Texas (and elsewhere in our country) who would fit within the picture painted by Locke, I am reticent to apply such a blanket painting of east Texas. However, I am not a person of color; perhaps I am not seeing or understanding the racism that a person of color is experiencing. This is an interesting issue that I would welcome the chance to think and talk about, but not with this book. My expectation was a book about a murder mystery that has interesting racial permutations; what I read was a book about race that happened to have a murder mystery in the background.

            Second, I did not like this book as I did not care for the writing. Mathews is overdrawn and unrealistic. The Texas Rangers are legendary and almost mythic in reputation. Mathews seems to have a similar attitude about the Rangers, at least in words; but, his actions are disrespectful of the institution. Much of the draw for me to read this book was the Texas Rangers, and I do not think that it adequately explored or portrayed their mythos. In addition, I found the plot to be wanting. Part of the plot – about the grand jury testimony, suspension, and their ties to the murders – felt contrived and confusing. Also, as a murder mystery, it was difficult to follow the logic of the investigation and derive “whodunit”. It felt as if there were leaps in the writing instead of a natural flow. The words just didn’t paint a solid picture for me.

Bluebird, Bluebird is acclaimed. Whoever pitched the book did a good job – I had high expectations of an award winning murder mystery about Texas and the Texas Rangers. In my opinion, however, the book did not live up its advanced billing. To be fair, I wonder if my opinion about this book might be different had I known its true nature before I started reading. But as I did not, I was very disappointed.