The joy of reading great, funny, and witty stories always overcome my sinister view of many things. I read Bambara’s short stories and writing this short note in bed as I’m currently struggling to recover from omicron. Her stories ease some pain, as I’m excited about the brilliance of her crafts. The plots, the style, the immediate but staggering ends! And how attractive their characters are: sassy, cunning, gentle, rude, lovable, impatient–everyday black people living in and from the North and South.

In her “Sort of Preface,” Bambara says, “… I deal in straight-up fiction myself, cause I value my family and friends, and mostly cause I lie a lot anyway.” I chuckled. That unapologetic note. She is a star. Fifteen short stories feel like fifteen long remarks about Black lives: rich and endearing. Things happen quickly. Her stories are never more than 20 pages. But her crisp writing style opens so many windows for readers to look at.

One story is about a widow flirting with an elderly blind man, which annoyed her grownup children. An upset kid who wanted to watch Gorilla, My Love but ended up watching a movie about Jesus. A little Ollie tried to celebrate her birthday and play but only found out all the grownups dismissed her. Sylvia, annoyed with Miss Moore’s lesson, learned about “white folks crazy” and how to spend four dollars. When the stories unfold, they capture.

Also, these stories have sounds. Written in vernacular English, Bambara plays around with the sounds of ordinary speech and literary tones. And her words and structures never appear as “trying too hard to be smart.” They are smart, witty, hopeful, and alive. She knows what to say about injustice, oppression, and inequality and what to do about it: possibilities of laughter, of dark grim jokes, but also of light bright smiles. No obscurity. The outburst of acts and emotions. Her stories awakening.

So the movie come on and right away it’s this churchy music and clearly not about no gorilla. Bout Jesus. And I am ready to kill, not cause I got anything gainst Jesus. Just that when you fixed to watch a gorilla picture you don’t wanna get messed around with Sunday School stuff. So I am mad. Besides, we see this raggedy old brown film King of Kings every year and enough’s enough. Grownups figure they can treat you just anyhow. Which burns me up. There I am, my feet up and my Havmore potato chips really salty and crispy and two jawbreakers in my lap and the money safe in my shoe from the big boys, and here comes the Jesus stuff. So we all go wild. Yellin, booin, stompin and carryin on.

“Gorilla, My Love,” p. 15

I’m excited to read more of Bambara’s writings!