"Red at the Bone" (Riverhead Books), by Jacqueline Woodson
Jacqueline Woodson begins her dazzling new novel, "Red at the Bone," with an afterthought, in the middle of things, and breaking all the rules of grammar by starting with a "but": "But that afternoon there was an orchestra playing." With that sentence, readers are thrust into the midst of a coming-of-age ceremony for a 16-year-old girl named Melody in her grandparents' beautiful old brownstone in Brooklyn, New York.
Earlier that day, her mother, Iris, told her some disturbing information — that when she got pregnant with her at age 15, Melody's grandparents initially didn't want her to have the baby. "Maybe this was the moment when I knew I was a part of a long line of almost erased stories," Melody thinks. "I am a narrative, someone's almost forgotten story."
For the rest of the novel, all the major figures in Melody's family will tell their stories in alternating chapters, moving back and forth in time, each one narrated in Woodson's inimitable style — jazzy, melodious, allusive, at times bordering on poetry or music. In the process, Woodson will weave in references to nearly a century of African American history "almost erased" by the enduring stain of racism, poverty, violence and drug addiction.
One of the earliest memories belongs to Melody's grandmother, Sabe, who recalls her ancestors telling her about the 1921 massacre in Tulsa, Oklahoma, when rampaging whites destroyed the thriving middle-class black community of Greenwood. "I made sure Iris knew," Sabe thinks. "And I'm going to make sure Melody knows too, because if a body's to be remembered, somebody has to tell its story."
Miraculously, Woodson manages to use this one particular Brooklyn family as a prism through which she explores profound generational differences in attitudes toward race, class, gender and sexuality. When, after giving birth to Melody, Iris goes off to Oberlin College, where she falls in love with a female classmate without even understanding what it might mean to be a lesbian, just knowing that when they're together, she "felt red at the bone — like there was something inside of her undone and bleeding."
By the time Melody is a teenager, society has changed to the point where her best friend Malcolm, who among other things excels at voguing, already knows that he's gay. Indeed, Woodson lets him recite what might be the coda for this warm and lovely novel: "Today you got introduced to society, Melody," he says when her party is over. "Shoot, I love that people think the world is even halfway ready for what we about to bring."
KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — A Ukrainian court on Friday ordered the detention of the country’s farm minister in the latest high-profile corruption investigation, while Kyiv security officials assessed how they can recover lost battlefield momentum in the war against Russia.
Ukraine’s High Anti-Corruption Court ruled that Agriculture Minister Oleksandr Solskyi should be held in custody for 60 days, but he was released after paying bail of 75 million hryvnias ($1.77 million), a statement said.
Ukraine’s National Anti-Corruption Bureau suspects Solskyi headed an organized crime group that between 2017 and 2021 unlawfully obtained land worth 291 million hryvnias ($6.85 million) and attempted to obtain other land worth 190 million hryvnias ($4.47 million).
Ukraine is trying to root out corruption that has long dogged the country. A dragnet over the past two years has seen Ukraine’s defense minister, top prosecutor, intelligence chief and other senior officials lose their jobs.
That has caused embarrassment and unease as Ukraine receives tens of billions of dollars in foreign aid to help fight Russia’s army, and the European Union and NATO have demanded widespread anti-graft measures before Kyiv can realize its ambition of joining the blocs.
In Ukraine's capital, doctors and ambulance crews evacuated patients from a children’s hospital on Friday after a video circulated online saying Russia planned to attack it.
Parents hefting bags of clothes, toys and food carried toddlers and led young children from the Kyiv City Children’s Hospital No. 1 on the outskirts of the city. Medics helped them into a fleet of waiting ambulances to be transported to other facilities.
In the video, a security official from Russian ally Belarus alleged that military personnel were based in the hospital. Kyiv city authorities said that the claim was “a lie and provocation.”
Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said that civic authorities were awaiting an assessment from security services before deciding when it was safe to reopen the hospital.
“We cannot risk the lives of our children,” he said.
Meanwhile, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was due to hold online talks Friday with the Ukraine Defense Contact Group, which has been the key international organization coordinating the delivery of weapons and other aid to Ukraine.
Zelenskyy said late Thursday that the meeting would discuss how to turn around Ukraine’s fortunes on the battlefield. The Kremlin’s forces have gained an edge over Kyiv’s army in recent months as Ukraine grappled with a shortage of ammunition and troops.
Russia, despite sustaining high losses, has been taking control of small settlements as part of its effort to drive deeper into eastern Ukraine after capturing the city of Avdiivka in February, the U.K. defense ministry said Friday.
It’s been slow going for the Kremlin’s troops in eastern Ukraine and is likely to stay that way, according to the Institute for the Study of War. However, the key hilltop town of Chasiv Yar is vulnerable to the Russian onslaught, which is using glide bombs — powerful Soviet-era weapons that were originally unguided but have been retrofitted with a navigational targeting system — that obliterate targets.
“Russian forces do pose a credible threat of seizing Chasiv Yar, although they may not be able to do so rapidly,” the Washington-based think tank said late Thursday.
It added that Russian commanders are likely seeking to advance as much as possible before the arrival in the coming weeks and months of new U.S. military aid, which was held up for six months by political differences in Congress.
While that U.S. help wasn’t forthcoming, Ukraine’s European partners didn’t pick up the slack, according to German’s Kiel Institute for the World Economy, which tracks Ukraine support.
“The European aid in recent months is nowhere near enough to fill the gap left by the lack of U.S. assistance, particularly in the area of ammunition and artillery shells,” it said in a report Thursday.
Ukraine is making a broad effort to take back the initiative in the war after more than two years of fighting. It plans to manufacture more of its own weapons in the future, and is clamping down on young people avoiding conscription, though it will take time to process and train any new recruits.
Jill Lawless contributed to this report.
Follow AP’s coverage of the war in Ukraine at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine
Ukrainian young acting student Gleb Batonskiy plays piano in a public park in Kyiv, Ukraine, Thursday, April 25, 2024. (AP Photo/Francisco Seco)
