The ObserverFictionReviewThe American writer is completely committed to the comic, controversial voice of a prison leaver in this energetic, touching novel
“Y’all females is all the same,” says one character to another in this book. But there’s no one quite like Carlotta Mercedes, the transgender Black Colombian heroine – no, star – of the second novel by James Hannaham, an American writer who won the PEN/Faulkner award for his first novel, Delicious Foods (2015).
In Didn’t Nobody Give a Shit What Happened to Carlotta, it’s New York, 2015; Carlotta is out of prison after 20 years for armed assault, when a woman was shot. “The bullet lowered her IQ to a kitty cat’s and she couldn’t wipe her own ass any more.” She tells her story in a hectic clamour, all street music, Black vernacular and spiralling sentences that interrupt themselves.
When a book is as funny as this there’s a danger that the serious stuff gets swept awayBeneath the chaos there is a plot: first, a parole hearing Carlotta scrapes through. “You can’t win against the cripple factor. Let alone some white cripples.” Then we’re off on some activities – family reunion, job application, car journey – that are only routine if you haven’t been locked up since 1993. Little wonder that “people used the same term for coming home from prison and coming back from outer space. Re-entry.”
Hannaham’s utter commitment to Carlotta’s voice means there are no sacred cows. She’s so happy to be out, she’s “flipping out like Stevie Wonder getting his sight back I’ma touch every damn tree!”, and putting on a halter top for the first time: “My titties yelling, free at last, free at last, thank God almighty we free at last!”
When a book is as funny as this there’s a danger that the serious stuff gets swept away. But it also lowers the reader’s defences, so, for example, Carlotta’s memories of being raped in prison sink all the deeper. Now that she is free, the reader can only root for her to succeed against the odds, to be rewarded for the way in which she greets everything with an enormous yes. Or as she puts it herself: “Every last second a this shit be crazy beautiful an I love life.”
Didn’t Nobody Give a Shit What Happened to Carlotta by James Hannaham is published by Europa Editions (£12.99). To support the Guardian and Observer order your copy at guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply
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