The One Who's Gonna See You Through
by John Steven Welch
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Pub Date Jul 30 2023 | Archive Date Mar 15 2024
Description
GJ's family is an anomaly. Samuel, his uneducated strongman father, respected for his brawn and violent aggression, acts as a conscientious, nurturing single parent, rearing his infant son in the 1950s when men were not their children's primary caregivers. Despite his father's typical Black masculinity, he intuitively understands his son's emerging gay nature as innate. GJ's mother, a child of Black middle-class privilege from the neighboring suburbs, is an absent parent, primarily engaged with living the rooming life, consisting of drink and abandon.
GJ's young life progresses, and he is thrust forth into circumstances both familiar and violently surreal, from typical bullying to standing as the principal witness in a murder trial to defend his father. Colorful characters like wild Uncle NapPo, the seemingly unflappable Miss Carrie, and his father's employer, the curious Mr. Blu, inform him of life's complexity.
The wide-eyed boy grows into his teens and twenties and is altogether victimized, loved, and enlightened, leading him to experience the full range of gay life. GJ learns the culture and codes of Washington’s insular Black gay bar scene as the teen partner of a man in his thirties. As GJ starts to relish his gay existence, becoming more confident with his gay identity and his family's unconventionality, he continues to question himself, fighting self-doubt and consternation about fitting into Black respectability norms or the mainstream world. GJ's adult existence and early professional life extend into the integrated world of Dupont Circle gay bars and Georgetown professional offices, where he finds the love of his life and soulmate.
The One Who Gonna See You Through is a work that bridges the commercial/literary divide. The gay interracial theme here is seldom explored, and the absent mother/loving father configuration brings a different lens to this work. The approach to story in The One Who Gonna See You Through sets the more familiar trope of the angry, Black, homophobic father aside and abandons the more well-trodden storyline of steadfast single Black motherhood. By story's end, GJ recognizes that his father's early and invaluable acceptance of difference laid the foundations for the happiness and realization he has experienced as a gay man throughout life. He resolves within himself that he must finally accept his legitimacy as both a Black man and an upper-middle-class one.
Available Editions
| EDITION | Hardcover |
| ISBN | 9781662938764 |
| PRICE | $24.99 (USD) |
| PAGES | 232 |
Available on NetGalley
Featured Reviews
S N, Reviewer
The One Who’se Gonna See You Through follows GJ, a gay Black man, from childhood through adulthood. There is a lot to be covered from his upbringing by a single father in Washington DC in the 60s to the loss and love living as an adult in various cities on the east coast. These various snippets of his life are covered sometimes broadly, and sometimes with incredible personal detail as though the reader themselves is experiencing them. The narrative is not linear and will jump back and forth without much context, which lends itself to the nature of the book, that this is a very real story being told. It feels very much as though GJ is there with you, recounting his life story and you are at the whims of his memory. This is not a common feeling in a book, and it’s not easily done, but it lands very well in The One Who’s Gonna See You Through, and I think it is the perfect way to tell this story.
This book explores themes of family, race, class, sexuality and its expression, through the lens of GJ’s life. GJ’s experiences are always different than his peers, starting with his life growing up with a single father at a time that was incredibly unusual. GJ’s father’s devotion, and his devotion in turn to the man who did everything to raise him, is the heart of the story. As the book shows us this world, the neighborhood GJ grew up in, and the issues the nation faced, it reflects on these topics through the unique perspective of GJ’s existence. Coupled with his “ways” (being obviously gay, even from a young age), GJ is able to reflect on the world around him from a different perspective. His perspective on his mother and her inability to be maternal is particularly poignant, as well as his descriptions of his relationship with his father. GJ’s daddy is not a perfect person, as no one is though fiction sometimes forgets this, but he is a good person and it is moving how accepting and loving he is towards his son no matter what.
Each character feels strong and well defined, and the book made me gasp, cry, and laugh. I enjoyed discovering things about a world I might not otherwise have heard about, and exploring life from a new perspective. This book is a solid narrative and a wonderful reflection of storytelling.
