As we got to the end of Angry Black White Boy, some weird stuff started happening. Some highly improbable things occurred, and I'm not sure they really make any sense. Two cases really stood out to me: the shootout between Macon and one of his haters, and the whole thing with Conway Donner, all the way to the end.
Between two bullets in the shootout, three people were killed, and the circumstances for each were pretty strange. The exact quote is as follows:
"The man's last five bullets had been stopped by the Volvo behind which Macon and company crouched, but the first ricocheted off a building and passed straight through the chest of a black statistician on the way to drop off his daughter at day care. He collapsed, and the bullet exited his back and bounced off a stop sign, a second building, and a third before coming to rest squarely in in the head of the white woman Macon had approached. She was dead before she toppled to the ground." (Mansbach 250)
Given what I've learned about terminal ballistics (the behavior of bullets after they hit something) from games and the occasional youtube video over the years, this sequence of events is HIGHLY improbable, borderline impossible. Starting from the top, the man is using a "huge, antique revolver." (Mansbach 250) From this, I can reasonably assume either .44 magnum or .357 magnum. These are both large, high-velocity rounds. Deflecting off one building with enough power to still kill someone is not out of the question. It's not even too unreasonable for the bullet to be able to pass all the way through someone's chest and keep flying.
However, after this, things get questionable. The bullet apparently bounced off a stop sign and two more buildings. Here's where terminal ballistics and physics start to get annoyed. For the bullet to have enough energy to still kill someone after hitting another two buildings, most likely brick walls, it would need to have a LOT of energy before it started hitting those other two buildings. All of this after two previous obstructions. The fact that the bullet deflected off a stop sign makes no sense. If the bullet had enough energy to deflect off the second and third buildings, it would have had enough energy to simply punch through the stop sign. I'm going to have to chalk this one up to some divine intervention to make Macon's life living hell as he has to deal with the problems he's created.
The entire thing with Conway Donner was a lot bit strange. He spoke of psychiatric reprogramming to make people believe they had a different cultural identity, and any time we get into psychiatry, the line between hard science and hand-waving gets blurred. But that's not the worst of it with Dr. Donner. When he and Nique show up in the Deus ex Machina, we're told the entire encounter was an act. It seems highly unlikely that Dr. Donner would have predicted that Macon would shoplift from a particular store, get recognized as a celebrity, and that Leo would walk in on all of this, and know this months in advance, before Macon even existed in the public eye. Also the name of the helicopter. Deus ex Machina. It literally means God from the Machine. If we don't notice the divine intervention slapping us in the face here, we're dumb.
Anyway, for a literary work in a modern setting, some pretty weird things happened that I can't comfortably explain. Honestly, my best guess is that Adam Mansbach got tired of Macon and decided to screw him over in the most spectacular way possible so that he could still have fun writing the ending.
OOo this is so interesting. All the stuff during the day of apology felt so fantastical to me that the bullet stuff kind of went over my head but having you go through all of the logic on it made me rethink it again. I love your idea about the supernatural aid being supernatural just to screw over Macon a little bit harder- felt to me like almost an anti-athena which makes sense for Macon (our arguable anti-hero). This book plays with supernatural so much from the subtle to the absolutely not so subtle (cough cough Conway Donner) and you really encapsulated that in your post along with some serious and sweet analysis.
ReplyDeleteI don't think that Mansbach got tired of writing Macon, but I agree with Kate that the fantastical elements of the novel start much earlier than the unrealistic ending. I think it all just moves way way quickly, and so I think you're right to characterize lots of the ending as supernatural. Sometimes books aren't realistic usually you want there to be a reason, I feel like there is one here. Also, you should totally read the White Boy Shuffle by Paul Beatty!
ReplyDeleteI liked your explanation of the impossibilities of the scene with the bullet instead of just stating it, because it brings your point across even better. That being said, I definitely agree that both of those events were pretty supernatural in nature.
ReplyDeleteHahahha nice post. I hadn't really thought about divine intervention besides Donner before this, but hear me out - Hip hop is supernaturally helping Macon through the whole thing. I'm defining hip hop as the loosely fantastical narrative style of the book. There are a lot of improbable but clever and funny things that happen in the book that remind me of the way hip hop sets up clever and funny verses and unexpected scenarios. The thing that sticks in my mind is when Macon does something and Andre and Nique slap their heads with "olympic synchronization". That phrasing sort of calls out the unlikelihood of that happening - when people are astounded, they dont actually slap their faces, and rarely would two do it at the same EXACT time. This phrase just reminds me of hip hop setting up clever points through scenarios like this. The ballistics are another example to me of ABWB's hip hop ness - setting up points through borderline impossible or absurd or funny scenarios. It feels like that narration is present throughout. Nice post, don't know if any of what I said has any truth to it, but it's what came to mind.
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