Fences Book Review- Zenon

Set in the 1950s, Fences, by August Wilson is a story written in play format that demonstrates the difficult lives filled with racism and social injustice that millions of African Americans experienced before Civil Rights were in place in America.  The story revolves around Troy Maxson and his family.  Troy is an irritable middle aged African American man who at one point in time was a prominent Negro league baseball player, but due to the fact that pro baseball was not yet integrated, he was not able to further his baseball career and become successful.   Throughout Fences, we see how his controversial personality and mindset conflict with other characters in the story such as his wife Rose, his sons Cory and Lyons, and his best friend Bono.

Opposed to a standard book where the story is told through the voice of some kind of narrator, Fences is written in the form of a play and the majority of the story is composed of dialogue between characters.  The opening paragraphs serve to inform the reader of the historical context of the story, and at the beginning of new scenes, there are often short introductions that give the reader an idea of the setting of the scene and also any important information that they need to know.  Other than this, the story is all discussion between characters.   This style of writing creates the lack of an analytical voice in the story and at times forces the reader to come up with their own interpretations of the exchanges between characters and the main points of the text.

Due to some of the harsh language in the story, I do not think that this book would be suitable to read for anyone under the age of 13.  The word “nigger” appears quite a lot throughout the course of the story and this might be too much for certain readers to handle.  In my opinion, the use of this word is appropriate given the historical context of the story and this adds a level of realism that helps the reader better understand the time period and what life was like for African American before Civil Rights.

Given the style the book is written in and the way the characters speak, it can be difficult to understand the story at times, which makes it very important that the reader pays attention and follows along line by line.  Expect to randomly skip forward at times, as Wilson will occasionally fast forward by weeks, months, and even years.  As a whole, I found Fences to be very interesting because I was able to see first-hand the struggle and hardship that African Americans went through in the mid-20^th century.  The plot is intriguing as well, as Wilson throws many surprises into the story that will make you want to keep reading.  I strongly recommend you read this book and I believe that you will enjoy it just as much as I did.