Confessions of a race traitor
While scanning the shelves of my local bookstore, I noticed what seemed to be a swell in new books, both fiction and nonfiction, dealing with racism. For good reason. Near the end of 2018, the FBI reported that the number of hate crimes in the United States rose for the third consecutive year, spiking significantly in 2017.
The bulk of the victims were targeted because of their race. “Copperhead,” Alexi Zentner’s third novel, is an ambitious attempt to grapple with some serious questions about racism’s infectious nature. But while the novel works well in its quiet moments, the story often relies on cheap narrative twists.
“Copperhead” unfurls over a disastrous weekend in the life of Jessup, a high school senior living in the Finger Lakes region in New York. Things are going well for Jessup. He gets aboveaverage grades, has an adoring girlfriend and has a good relationship with his mom and sister. He’s also a star on his school’s football team, and he’s fairly certain his academic achievements and talent on the field will catch the eye of recruiters from Brown or Yale.
None of this changes the fact that there are skeletons in his family’s closet: Jessup’s stepfather, David John, and his brother were both imprisoned for a hate crime committed years ago that left two young men dead. Jessup was quick to distance himself from the culture he had grown up in after the crime, specifically the white supremacist church that his mother and sister still attend.
Regardless, Jessup was grateful for the changes David John had introduced into his life. His stepfather taught him to love football, but more importantly, David John was an instrumental force in his mother’s newfound sobriety. Jessup just isn’t sure he wants his stepfather back in his life.
“Copperhead” is at its best when it slows down to let Jessup stew in his problems, and he has a lot of problems, including a horrific accident that eventually drives the narrative. Alexi Zentner uses this situation to examine how faith, friendship and family have an influence that, for good or ill, last our entire lives.
After the murders that sent his stepfather and brother to prison, Jessup distanced himself from the Blessed Church of White America, stopped answering to David John’s surname and found himself in a secret relationship with a young woman of color. But no matter how many times he tells himself that he no longer holds prejudices, Jessup experiences just how tight the grip of racism is.
While Jessup’s moments of self-examination in the novel are particularly strong, the characters in the young man’s orbit could have used some more fleshing out. Wyatt, Jessup’s best friend and a still-zealous white supremacist, is particularly shallow. The novel keeps reminding the reader of the lifelong bond between the two teens despite their diverging paths, but their friendship never feels genuine. This flimsy characterization really sticks out at the end, where the novel rushes to a denouement that feels too right and wraps things up a little too neatly.
Mr. Zentner writes in a clipped, journalistic style that keeps the story moving along, only occasionally letting more florid prose creep in as Jessup wrestles with the choices he made. The author also has an impressive knack for succinctly capturing the character of Cortaca, the novel’s thinly veiled take on Ithaca, N.Y. With a few choice words, he gives a genuine sense of place.
Unfortunately, “Copperhead” tosses out most of its nuanced aspects and tries to be a thriller for the last third, complete with abbreviated chapters that barely run longer than a single page. It’s an odd stylistic choice that never quite works, and the sudden cuts between each chapter feel like interruptions rather than natural places to pause.
“Copperhead” is an ambitious book that takes its subject seriously. Mr. Zentn e r ’ s mother fought against racism and antiSemitism when he was a child, and the violence that followed his mother home left a permanent impression on him. These experiences translate to the page, as does his palpable concern for the direction our society is heading in. As admirable as the book is in spots, “Copperhead” never quite comes together once the narrative focus shifts into its overly dramatic conclusion.