The amount of Black on Black brutality and destruction is surprising in this novel, but not unbelievable. It's what happens when the oppressed mimic the oppressor it s their twisted mis-interpretation of the Black American Dream. At points the novel veers toward overkill with the Black American tragedy, however. It seems that every conceivable tragedy happens to most of the characters most of the time. Though a reality check can reveal such despair just about anywhere you can point a camera in most inner cities, there is such a thing as Grace.
Black folk begin to conserve their tears and they keep getting up.
This novel evokes, through naming the names of, Black history icons and demigods from David Walker, to Nat Turner, to Angela Davis, to Malcolm X. One of the novel s most powerful messages is that the hip-hop generation cannot be dismissed. If the ghetto gangsta is a monster, he is a monster created by the conditions under which he must survive and thrive. He is no longer satisfied with the meager governmental handouts that are meant to sustain the poverty stricken and maintain the status quo. He seeks another definition of success. In the Shadow of the Son has all the depravity of the urban battleground and all the beauty and hope of Black love.