state of the nation
Finalist: 2019 Lambda Literary Award
CHAPTER SAMPLE
CHAPTER THIRTY FOUR
SANTOS
The two of them sat in the back room of Walt’s Sneak Attack. Walt was on the showroom floor, demonstrating a few pair of basketball shoes to a customer. Since the customer was not just a minor, but included parents, he had warned Santos and Dion not to leave the store room until he returned to let them know that it was all clear.
Dion was smoking a cigarette, and staring at Santos with disbelief. “Why would you do that? That’s crazy, to me. You going to let some queen go to town on your face for some little bit of change?”
“You call a thousand dollars a little bit of change?”
Dion laughed. “Come on, now, bitch. This dumb blonde routine was cute for a little while, but now you are starting to be an embarrassment. Do you really think those slimy motherfuckers are going to be pulling in that kind of money by charging to watch a couple of faggots fight? And even if they did, you best believe that they will not be on the up and up with giving you your proper take.”
Santos stood up and paced the small space of the room. “Maybe. But no matter what it is I need the money. You know how it is living with my brother? He don’t feed me, he don’t give me any money. I got nothing to eat. They call Jonas down to eat every evening and act like I’m not even there. I got no weed, no cigarettes, no beer…”
“That’s tragic, chile.” Dion chirped insincerely.
Santos glared furiously. Dion went into his bag and extended a hand with three ten dollar bills. “Here you go. If you needed some money why didn’t you say something before. You know I wouldn’t see you go hungry. You could have even asked White Girl.”
Santos took the money with a look of gratitude, tucking it into his tight yellow jeans. “Thanks. I would rob banks before asking that white bitch for her help. Anytime she does you a solid, you best believe there’s something in it for her. She slimy.”
“Girl, she white. Of course she can’t be trusted. Just take the goddamn money and fuck her. She ask you to do something you look at that bitch like her pussy stink.” Dion then lowered his voice, looking toward the doorway to be sure Walt wasn’t coming. “And I guess robbing a bank wouldn’t be much of a stretch for you, after snatching Chicago’s ring, now would it? How much you get for it, you treacherous bitch?”
Santos’ voice rose two octaves. All the evidence Dion needed to know that he was lying. “What ring. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
As Santos batted his eyes in a display of innocence, Dion scornfully blew a tuft of cigarette smoke in his face. “Bitch, bye. Who you think you talking to. How much?”
“Couple hundred.”
“You know Miss Lonnie got beat like a dark-skinned field hand for that shit, right? Chicago fucked that bitch up,” he laughed savagely. “Then fucked her up. If you know what I mean.”
Santos laughed. “Fuck that tired bitch. I don’t give a fuck about her and her lying, putting on airs ass. She probably had that ass kicking coming for something, anyway, so it was her just due.”
Dion fanned smoke fumes out of his face. “You a shady bitch. Sha-dy…Well anyway, I know that money I gave you wasn’t much, but I hope that, and your ill gotten gains will persuade you not to do that stupid ass faggot in a box shit.”
Walt entered the room as Dion said the last part of his sentence. “Man, mind your business. Don’t be trying to talk my boy out of doing this shit just because you too punk-ass to do it. That’s good ass money and you know it.”
“I don’t know shit. But I know one thing for sure and two things for certain: ain’t going to be no winners with a bunch of crackers paying to watch two black faggots beating on each other. I’m not feeding into any type of bullshit like that. And anyone that does is adle-brained.”
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The power of Ambrose’s novel is in the brilliant way he weaves the past with our contemporary moment with each reflecting and more precisely defining the other. Readers are given a moral novel far surpassing the hollow, myopic literature usually encountered yet there’s never a moment when State of the Nation feels preachy, glib, or forced.
"As a first novel, Ambrose has given readers a quiet, resonant gem..."
misanthropester.com
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"Ambrose crafts something that feels vitally important, especially at this time..."
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STATE OF THE NATION follows the day to day experiences of three boys of color as they navigate through a society that does not see them, at best, or at worst, sees them as degenerate bodies deserving extermination.
The Atlanta Child Murders of the late ‘70s, early ‘80s, serves as the undefined monster that acts as micro, macro and psychic aggressor, functioning in a way that inhibits and prescribes behavior. The murders loom in the background of the story, serving as an albatross that hovers over the lives of three friends coming of age during a moment in American history that in many ways mirrors the present, as police violence perpetuated against Black youth continues to generate press.
STATE OF THE NATION highlights the fact that missing black bodies were not an anomaly, it was the media attention of those particular bodies that was the anomaly, as black bodies were being defaced, defiled, and extinguished all over the country during that time. The Atlanta Murders were a continuation of neo lynching, a replication of an age-old American tradition reminding black youth that they are expendable.
STATE OF THE NATION links elements of the Tuskegee Experiment of the 1940’s to the ever-present vulnerability of the black body, making use of the era in which the story is told, the cusp of the 1980’s, to hint at the beginning of the AIDS crisis, which began on the tail end of the Atlanta Child Murders.
STATE OF THE NATION shows the influence of pop culture prior to the advent of social media. Pop culture serves not as a world that shuts these characters out because they are different, but sort of glamourizes difference, so in a way, it is something that is attainable to them because it gives them an example of what they can try to emulate in order to obscure the things that make them different. The imagery of classic movies and fashion magazines act as tertiary parents, soothing when they are upset, telling them stories when they are bored, entertaining them when they are lonely, teaching them how to speak properly, demonstrating how to give the witty one-liner.