With “If Beale Street Could Talk,” James Baldwin puts reality on paper and never asks the reader to weep, for he knows they must. 

Telling the blossoming love story between main characters Tish and Fonny from adolescence to young adulthood, Baldwin quite literally weaves a tale across the years. Simultaneously showing the lovebirds’ growing intimacy effortlessly alongside the present-day, where Tish’s family is in despair, working to get Fonny out of prison for a crime he didn’t commit, Baldwin sweeps the reader off their feet.

Yet, even in such a serious novel, Baldwin illuminates’ levity, hope, resilience and most importantly, love in the darkest hours. The novel opens with Fonny in prison and Tish telling him that she’s pregnant and then Baldwin goes back to the beginning, laying the foundation for the novel’s core relationship and showing the familial struggles of both partners.

Told with rhythmic, spiritual prose, harkening back to Baldwin’s time as a preacher in his teens, this novel lifts one up and knocks one back down with the same hand, and one is never confused about how they got there. Truly intersectional, delving into discussions of gender, sexuality, sexual abuse in the prison system, police violence, colorism, religious fervor, and somehow more, “If Beale Street Could Talk” is a special novel, worthy of anyone’s time.