Well this is really just fucking depressing. Don't get me wrong - I was riveted, and read it all in a single sitting - but it's really, really depressing. There's a reason I haven't shelved this as romance, because there's no happy ending here.

It was an odd one to shelve, to be honest. Lots of people seem to have listed it as science fiction, but it's not really. I think the closest I can come is alternate history, although it's really more of an alternate present. Race relations if the races were reversed, and I was a little hesitant to read it because that has the potential to go so simplistically, spectacularly wrong. I write short fiction, and there's a reason a lot of the speculative fiction short story markets have "don't send stories like this" in their guidelines. But Blackman has really made it work here, and I think partly because so much of the plot has been clearly influenced by personal experience and historic events. A while back I read a memoir from Carlotta Walls LaNier, for instance, called A Mighty Long Way - it is excellent, you should read it - about her experiences as one of the first black children to attend the Little Rock High School, back when education was segregated in the United States, and her horrific experiences very closely resemble Callum's.

I think the real strength here, though, is the emotional reaction it evoked. I wasn't spoiled in advance - so I won't describe the ending here - but I can't say I was surprised, if that makes any sense. I'm white, and from the first few pages I had that horrible, gut wrenching flinch of a response to the story, precisely because - even though I haven't experienced racism first hand - I've educated myself to some level of awareness. It's an ongoing process. But knowing how cruel people can (and continue to be) over race... I could read and be sad and angry but not surprised, if that makes sense.

Anyway. This is the first book by Blackman that I've read. It won't be the last.