Those We Thought We Knew – David Joy

Those we Thought We Knew is a conversation on race. It is sort of a mystery, although the name pretty much gives away the solution. Toya is a fiercely individual black artist from Atlanta, working on her thesis. She’s staying with her grandmother Vess in a rural town in North Carolina for the summer, using space in a studio in the local college to work, covered in clay. Toya is also an activist and early in the novel, she gets some friends to help her create an installation at the college that is shocking to some members of the community and forces a few to confront the racial divide in the town. It means Sheriff Coggins has to get involved and he wishes, wishes, wishes Toya would cool it, while giving her a break due to his friendship with Vess. David Joy sets up a variety of relationships and points of view as well as a couple of very violent crimes, to educate us on racial perspectives. I like how he illustrates the fundamental ignorance of a lot of white people about their assumptions on race and how the Black characters consistently hold us accountable. The story is well written.

I admit that the same thing I like about this novel, felt stereotypically constructed. It was as if David Joy had a checklist of issues he wanted to cover and he created characters and vignettes for each. A traditional Klan man. A new age Klan man. People everyone knew were Klan members. People no one guessed were Klan members. A white guy loved in the community who was always close fishing buddies with a Black guy who was loved in the community. The matriarch of a Black family who goes along to get along. The daughter of the matriarch who left and succeeded in a career away from the exhausting pressures of growing up in a town stifling to a young Black girl.. The back woods, kind of dumb red neck. The Black minister. Members of the police and sheriffs department with varying degrees of reactions to change from totally close minded to evolving. I know how much I as a white person need to learn, every day, about privilege, about the permeation of racism, about microagression, about resisting the truth because it’s too hard (fragility) and so I appreciated this lesson couched in an entertaining story. It is well written. It is entertaining. It is not too much. It should be taught in Florida.