"No one moves back to Hiroshima."*
On my way to and from my classes this last week, I've listened to Scott Lasser's book, Say Nice Things About Detroit. It often irritated me more than most of the books I've read in years.
Let's
get one thing straight: I love Detroit. Admittedly, I don't live in
the city, so I haven't had to deal with the same problems the residents
of the city have had to confront. However, I've worked here for ten
years. At any time after those first four years or so, I could have
easily taken a job elsewhere. But I haven't. Part of the reason for
that is the fact that I love Detroit. It's an amazing city. When I
first arrived in the city in 2002, it was in the middle of an "up
swing," and the city was filled with hope. The years when Dennis Archer
was mayor had been good years, and Kwame Kilpatrick had only just taken
office. He was a charismatic leader, and it really seemed possible
that Detroit was turning around. Seemed is the operative word there.
What I didn't know at the time was that Detroit feeds on those cycles of
hope. Every few years, things will look better here, but then they'll
go downhill again. If not for the cycles of hope, the city would have
collapsed long ago. Some might think that it's collapsed now. The
bankruptcy is all over the news (both nationally and internationally--my
friend in Vienna learned about it on her local news). Some are trying
to say that the bankruptcy is the ultimate proof that Detroit has fallen
for good. Others are trying to spin it that this is what will restore
the city. For me, I just see it as another stage in the cycle. This is
a dark stage, yes, but I think the riots may have been darker. Why do I
love this city if I can say such things about it? Well, simply, I love
the fact that, no matter how bad things are, Detroit doesn't give up.
That cycle of hope is addictive, and I find myself always thinking that
Detroit can still have a prosperous future. It won't look like the
prosperity of the past, but that's probably a good thing.
How
does all this relate to that passage from the book? Well, that passage
offended me. It's from the point of view of David, one the main
characters of the novel. He's a 45-year-old lawyer, and his father has
invited him to move back to Detroit. His first response is think that
there's nothing in the city for him or for anyone else. For him, the
destruction of Detroit is similar to that of Hiroshima, the first city
destroyed by a nuclear bomb. After the bomb struck Hiroshima, thousands
of people continued to die due to the radiation given off by the
buildings themselves. The city was toxic and damaged those that tried
to live in it. Except that's not the end of the story. The city
rebuilt itself. There's a park dedicated to peace in the city near the
site of Ground Zero. It's now a vibrant city, rebuilt from the rubble
of the bomb.
While looking at the
comparison that way makes Detroit seem better--as if it, too, can
recover like Hiroshima has--I still don't like the metaphor. Detroit is
not broken, for one thing. It's struggling, yes. It's dangerous,
yes. But even though much of it has been abandoned, it is not broken.
The damage to Hiroshima was sudden and stunning. The damage to Detroit
has been creeping and slow, with a sudden boost of speed during and
after the riots. If it had been fast, we might have been able to "fix"
it already.
Eventually, David does decide
to return to Detroit. He falls in love with the city again, and readers
are supposed to think that hope has returned to the city with him
(after all, he now has a baby son and an American car). What Lasser
might not realize is that his hero was just another part of that same
old cycle. Hope, followed by despair. Followed by hope . . .
*I listened to this an audiobook, so I don't have a page or chapter information for the quotation.
Lasser, Scott. Say Nice Things About Detroit: A Novel. Narr. Kevin Kenerly. Blackstone Audio, 2012.
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