Tristan Strong Punches a Hole in the Sky

“Let me give you some truth, and I hope it returns back to me.”

This quote prepares the reader to hear a story and engages the audience. Folktales frequently open with lines like these, so this quote also directly connects the novel and Tristan’s story to the storytelling traditions of Black folklore.

“I hated that name. It made me appear to be something I’m not. My name should’ve been Tristan Coward, or Tristan Failure, or Tristan Fake. Maybe Tristan How-Could-You-Lose-Your-First-Boxing-Match. Anything but Tristan Strong.”

One of Tristan’s consistent inner conflicts is his fear that he will not be able to live up to the expectations of others, especially the adults in his life. Here, Tristan’s reference to his family name shows that one source of this feeling is that his family has high expectations of him, particularly when it comes to boxing, a skill at which both his father and grandfather excelled.

“It’s the spider’s web, an old African symbol for creativity and wisdom. It shows how tangled and complicated life can be. But with a little imaginative thinking, we can solve most of our problems and those of others.”

Nana Strong’s ability to identify the strange new adinkra on the cover of Eddie’s journal shows that she has deep knowledge of Black folklore and oral culture and that she is intent on passing this knowledge down orally to her grandson. Her focus on the life lesson embedded in the symbol illustrates the importance of folklore as a means of passing down cultural values.

“‘Y’all need to stop filling his head with that mess about symbols. He needs to stay in the real world, think about what he did wrong last night. The boy need to focus! Boxing ain’t gonna just happen—you got to train your body and your mind.’

‘Granddad, I don’t want—’”

Grandpa Strong’s insistence on the importance of being practical and disciplined is one of the many messages Tristan receives about being a Strong and a boy. Grandpa’s dismissal of storytelling—a potentially creative, healing practice for a grieving boy like Tristan—is one of the attitudes Tristan eventually must overcome to work through his grief. Tristan attempts to respond to his grandfather but fails. This scene shows that Tristan has not yet learned to tell his own story at this stage in his character development.

“As soon as he said that, I remembered the vision in my grandparents’ car. The large, weary, and bruised rabbit, anxious and jumpy. So had that been real, and not a dream like I’d assumed? My mind reeled. First Gum Baby, now Brer Fox and Brer Rabbit. All of them from stories Eddie had collected, that Nana had told, that I’d read in some form while growing up. And now I stood with the very same characters, plucked straight out of a book.”

Tristan accepts the strange new reality of the world of Alke only because he can connect it to the reality of life in Chicago and Alabama. Early hints of magic and Tristan’s responses to them enhance the novel’s worldbuilding and help the reader accept the seemingly impossible—a concept known as called suspension of disbelief.

“Two voices echoed in my ear. One in the present, one in the past. Ayanna’s…and a teacher’s aide. Both wanted the same thing—for me to leave someone behind.”

Tristan’s indecision when faced with the choice to help the Midfolk or stand and fight the fetterlings shows that his failure to deal with the pain of Eddie’s death in the past impedes his ability to function well in the present. Tristan’s great struggle is to learn to put the past in its place. At the beginning of his time in Alke, he has not learned the skills he needs to come to terms with his past.

“Fetterlings broke off to attack me, and I punched them like I’d never punched before. My knuckles had no protection, but the pain didn’t matter. Nothing mattered except reaching my best friend. He’d returned when I needed him. He’d come back for me, to save me from a nightmare, just like he’d said he always would. Losing him again would destroy me.”

Tristan has one tool to use to confront anything that makes him afraid, and that is boxing. In this scene, he attempts to use boxing to defend the paper giant form of Eddie that emerges from the journal. Tristan is unable to imagine surviving yet another failure because he still has the idea that being a hero means never having to confront failure.

“Brer Fox told me we can’t harp on past mistakes. He said a lot of stuff like that. I don’t remember it all, but what I do remember, I keep telling myself so I won’t forget it. Keeping someone’s words alive is like keeping them alive, right? I know you tried, and I know what Brer Fox did, and I know he’s gone, but as long as I have his words, I'll have him. So it's okay. Right?”

Chestnutt shares the wisdom Brer Fox taught Chestnutt about dealing with the past and begins teaching Tristan the valuable lesson that language and stories are important tools for coming to terms with the past and learning from it. As is frequently the case in the novel, Tristan learns both from adults (indirectly here from Brer Fox) and from peers.

“So remember that. A lot of times those little facts get smudged out of the history books. If you gon’ tell a story, you better be sure you’re telling the right one.”

Nana Strong explains to Tristan that the more heroic tale of John Henry beating the steam machine but dying with a hammer in his hand hides an uglier history of racism and forced labor. Her warning to Tristan underscores the theme of the power of storytelling to determine what we see as history. She is also indirectly letting Tristan know how important it is that he exercise control over stories he tells about himself.

“‘They say the People could fly,’ I whispered.

The women caught each other’s eyes, then leaned forward and stared at me even more closely.

The first said, ‘It seems we have—’

‘—a storyteller,’ the second finished.”

Tristan repeats the first line of a famous tale about the Flying Africans, showing that he has engrained within himself the stories Nana told so deeply that he recognizes them when they come to life in Alke. This knowledge of Black folklore is one of the important resources Tristan brings with him as he navigates the world of Alke. This is also a scene in which Tristan is named as something other than a troubled child. This initial recognition of Tristan as a storyteller empowers him later to assume greater control over how he sees himself, so this scene marks an important moment in his character’s development.

“Adults passed those looks back and forth when they didn’t want you to know what they really thought about you. Those looks could travel around a room as quick as the wind, replacing all conversation as soon as you entered. They were exchanged by adults you knew and by adults who thought they knew you. Mr. How-You-Doing-Sport and Mrs. Are-You-Okay-Sweetie would flash the looks between them before trying to dissect your last twenty-four hours. I hated those looks.”

Although Tristan is now recognized as a storyteller, the gods of MidPass are not ready to make space for Tristan to express his own desires and needs. Tristan recognizes this situation because it is one that links life back in his ordinary life and life in Alke.

“The anger piled behind my eyes in a pounding headache, thumping in a rhythm that felt strangely familiar. I needed to punch something, but there were no gloves, no punching bags nearby. My skull was going to split open if I didn’t lash out, if I didn’t channel that energy somehow.”

Early in his character development, Tristan still has not learned to use his words to be heard. His sense of overwhelm in this passage is one that he can only express physically, but the context—important discussion with adults—is one where using his fists is a poor tool for self-expression. His frustration shows that he is starting to realize that he needs other ways to be heard. He angrily recounts Gum Baby’s theft of the journal from his own perspective after this, and although his storytelling is undisciplined, it makes the adults see him differently. He thus learns his first lesson in the power of storytelling to shape reality in Alke.

“It ain’t really a who. It’s more of a feeling. Of devastation and destruction, hunger and greed. It’s pain, and that’s what it survives on. It came here with the first of us, with me and Brer Rabbit and Brer Fox and the Flying Ladies. The sadness to our joy. We managed to defeat it once. We thought if we let it sink to the bottom of the Burning Sea, and stayed vigilant, and forbade anyone from mentioning or even thinking of it, we could live peaceful lives […] But something’s brought it to the surface again.”

John Henry’s description of the Maafa and its banishment makes it clear that the Maafa has a historical foundation in the pain of the enslavement of Black people at the start of the Atlantic slave trade. The history of slavery is thus an important part of the cultural context for the novel. His description of how the gods of MidPass decided to deal with this past—ignoring it—gives some hint about why they can never get rid of it. The conflict with the Maafa underscores the lesson that the past can only be dealt with if we name and tell stories about it.

“I stared at him. Ready to be a hero? The words echoed in my ears and pounded in my skull as images of Eddie and Brer Fox came to mind. In both those instances, I’d failed to help anybody. This would be the third attempt, and this time there were even more lives at stake. I might strike out for good. I backed up, nearly stumbling in my haste, and shook my head. ‘No.’”

This scene represents a common stage in the hero’s journey, namely, the refusal to take up the quest. Here and elsewhere, Tristan’s inability to deal with the possibility of more failure prevents him from being the hero he wants to be.

“This was nothing like my first boxing match. Back then I was drifting. I didn’t have any purpose. But now? Now I had a goal. Pop. An objective. Pop. One mission, should I choose to accept it, and that was to defend the Thicket. Pop pop. Protect this house. Pop pop. They—the enemy, the fetterlings, the Maafa, Uncle C, and whoever else—they wanted to win, but I wanted it more. That must have been why Old Man Rawlins kept winning […] Swing after swing, punch after punch. When one enemy was defeated, two more stepped up. Eventually, my arms started to get tired and the grin slipped off my face. The movies, the comics, the stories—none of them mentioned this.”

Tristan gets closer to his ideal of being a hero who can win the day for people depending on him. John Henry’s trust in him, provision of tools, the boxing gloves, and sharing of the tale about Old Man Rawlins’s resilience allow Tristan to feel a greater sense of confidence in his ability to be successful, while the overwhelming fatigue shows that Tristan is finally learning the lesson that heroism is not necessarily about winning.

“I’m not a hero. I’m a boy with a crew straight out of a dusty fairy-tale book, and everybody expects me to confront beasts and monsters and fly around on a raft. I don’t even like flying. I’m scared of heights. There, I said it.”

As the plot progresses, Tristan’s willingness to share his weaknesses and fears grows. His willingness to share the less-than-heroic parts of himself with others shows his maturation. In addition, he talks about himself as part of a “crew,” an indication that he has learned to see his collaboration with others as a part of how he survives in Alke. His lack of confidence in his ability to succeed, however, shows that he still does not quite believe a person like him can succeed in a heroic quest. That only comes later.

“‘Let’s say there are monsters,’ I boomed into the near-silent mountain city. My eyes swept the crowd. The rhythm had caught on, and they were now clapping along. That’s the power of the Anansesem, I realized. Giving the story to the listeners, so they can pass it on to others. Anansesem shared not only the stories, but also the storytelling experience.”

Tristan’s storytelling to an audience of Ridgefolk is one of the first times he intentionally uses his Anansesem powers to sway a group of people. His awareness that oral tradition isn’t just about the powers of the individual but also emerges from the collaboration between the storyteller and the audience shows that Tristan is coming to understand the true power of storytelling, which is to connect people to others. Tristan’s performance also shows something typical in oral tradition, the remixing of traditional elements such as characters and sounds to tell stories that meet the needs of the audience and the moment. Tristan’s ability to improvise a tale on the spot shows that he is coming into his own as an Anansesem.

“Power, boy! It’s all about power. You control the story, you control the narrative, you control power.”

High John’s description of why the Story Box is so powerful shows that storytelling is not just about collaboration or bringing people together for good. It is about shaping reality. His advice echoes the advice Nana gives Tristan when she explains the reality behind the heroic tales of John Henry. Although High John is power-hungry, he is one of several characters whose mentorship allows Tristan to understand the significance of storytelling in his own life and culture.

“Uncle C thought he was smart. The haint had left me with the one memory I hated most. The memory of Eddie’s death. Well, all memories serve a purpose…. What are memories except stories we tell ourselves, right?”

Tristan has spent the time since Eddie died running away from the event because he finds it too painful to deal with. Being stuck on one memory is a frequent response to painful events, so the predicament Tristan finds himself in because of Uncle C’s punishment is a good representation of what unacknowledged pain can do to people. People usually are only able to get unstuck once they allow the story to be a part of their daily lives. In this passage, Tristan tells the story to Ayanna because High John has told him that hearing a story might save her. This moment marks an important epiphany for Tristan because it shows his growing understanding that storytelling has the potential to heal.

“Can’t live your life with grief whispering in your ear, pulling you this way and that. But you can’t shove it in a drawer deep inside yourself, neither. Naw, you got to sit grief down and talk to it. Listen to it. Come to terms with it. Pain is the body’s way of saying it’s healing, so you gotta let it heal.”

Tristan finally shares the full story of what happened to Eddie and explains to his companions that his failure to save Eddie is one of his primary motivations as a person. The advice he receives here, that pain is part of life and that stuffing it down will only make it worse, is one lesson that he takes in and uses to better manage his emotions and thoughts. He increasingly relies upon this new skill and gains insight about other characters, including the Maafa, which is also stuck in its own past.

“The common story we all share, that passes from city to city, from country to country, from world to world. The story that everyone’s uncle wants to tell again and again. The story told at the watercooler. The story told around the campfire. The story told at bedtime, whether in Chicago or Alabama, the Golden Crescent or MidPass. I closed my eyes. Music. Drumbeats. Clapping. Laughter. Calls. Responses.”

The ability to master both the ordinary world and the magical world is a typical moment in the hero’s journey. In this passage, Tristan finally becomes capable of being the hero because he understands that stories are what connect us all.

“The open secret of the Maafa had been bothering me throughout my time here, and it had taken something High John said to make me understand. You shouldn’t try to hide from your pain. You shouldn’t run from it, cover it up, pretend it never happened. That’s what John Henry and Nyame and all the other gods had tried to do with the Maafa. That’s what I’d tried to do with Eddie. Uncle C thought he’d hurt me by taking all my good memories of my best friend, but he’d only helped me face my feelings. As Anansesem, it was my job to carry the stories of the land to its people. All the stories. If we ignored the past, how would we learn from it?”

Having learned about the dangers of stuffing down pain and bad memories to himself, Tristan shows growth as a character by using that lesson to understand the Maafa. His ability to apply this personal lesson to the situation allows him to make a good (but controversial) decision to deal with the Maafa directly. His maturity in this moment is such that he shows emotional intelligence that exceeds that of the people who taught him the importance of acknowledging the past.

“We found ourselves in a different compartment, where the water came up to my ankles and I had to crouch to avoid bumping my head on the upper deck. The windowless space we had entered was about the size of the cafeteria at my school, but it wasn’t made for tall people. Either that or no one ever stood upright in here. The bulkhead and decks were all made of rough, dark planks. Fragments of wooden crates and barrels lay in piles in different corners, along with rusted metal chains.”

This compartment is in the interior of the Maafa, and it bears a striking similarity to the holds of the slave ships that brought enslaved people to the Americas through the Middle Passage of the slave trade. This historical reference makes it clear that the Maafa is an important symbol of this painful period in Black American history.