美国国家公共电台 NPR In 'Long Way Down,' The Ghosts Of Gun Violence Chill A Plan For Revenge

 

DAVID GREENE, HOST:

The writer Jason Reynolds has a new novel out this month. It focuses on a moment of decision that occurs in an elevator where a young man is on his way to avenge¹ the killing² of his brother. The novel is called "Long Way Down," and Jason Reynolds came by our studio. I asked him first if he'd read a passage from the book.

JASON REYNOLDS: (Reading) I stuck the cannon³ in the waistband in the back of my jeans, the handle sticking out like a steel tail. I covered it with my too-big T-shirt, the name-brand hand-me-down from Shawn. The plan was to wait for Riggs in front of his building. Me and Shawn were always over his house before Riggs joined the gang, and since then Sean had been up that way a bunch of times to get Mom's special soap. I figured it would be safest if I went in the morning. If I timed it right, none of his crew would be out yet. No one would ever suspect me. I'd hit his buzzer⁴, get him to come down and open the door. Then I'd pull my shirt over my mouth and nose and do it.

GREENE: So tell me who we're hearing from here. Who is this young man in the elevator?

REYNOLDS: This is William Holloman, who goes by Will. He's a young man who, unfortunately, has just lost his brother to gun violence the night before this is all happening. And Will is growing up in a community where there are certain rules. There's a code of conduct. And what those rules are is, number one, no crying. Number two, no snitching. And number three, always seek revenge. And so he is upholding the rules, and this is rule number three. He's going to find the man who murdered his brother, and his plan is to murder that man. Unfortunately, there are - he has to get on the elevator to go down to the ground floor to do this, and that's where he's met by a few visitors.

GREENE: A few visitors. And I don't want to give too much away because I want people to read the book, obviously, but this elevator trip, it almost takes on "A Christmas Carol" type feel.

REYNOLDS: Absolutely.

GREENE: He's being visited by ghosts of his past.

REYNOLDS: Absolutely.

GREENE: Why does that happen? What plays out here?

REYNOLDS: What I wanted to do in telling a tale about gun violence is to not create one-dimensional characters that fall into, like, cliches. And so what I think what we can do with devices like using ghosts of the past is, we can create a space where the writer, the author, quote-unquote, "me," doesn't have to teach a lesson. Instead it's about us, a community, thinking about those of our family members and our friends who we've already lost to this thing and allow their haunting to be the thing that creates our psyche⁶ and our conscious.

GREENE: What is an example of the cliche⁵ when it comes to gun violence that you might have fallen into?

REYNOLDS: One, that young people who engage in this, especially the back and forth⁷, the revenge, that there's a fearlessness, that these young people are sort of without feelings, without emotion, that they're cold as ice. Right? The truth is, is that everyone who's ever been around anyone who has been in these environments knows that the people who pull the triggers are terrified.

GREENE: For young people who decide ultimately to pull the trigger, does the fact that they were afraid and fearful, does it ever justify⁸ the pulling of that trigger? Or, excuse it. Maybe excuse is a better - does it ever excuse the pulling of the trigger?

REYNOLDS: I don't know if I would say it excuses it because I think that a life lost is a life lost and gun violence is gun violence. But I will say that, like, there are reasons, there are circumstances that lead to these moments and that lead to the behavior and the mindset of young people in particular environments, and that we on the outside, people who are the voyeurs⁹ of these experiences, the people on the outside of the fishbowl, have to be very careful about passing judgment¹⁰ and should extend some grace and should try to figure out how to better humanize the people involved.

GREENE: I wonder if you could take me to you as a 19-year-old living just outside Washington, D.C., because this story is very personal to you, right?

REYNOLDS: Absolutely. I mean, I was 19. You know, I got a phone call at 2 o'clock in the morning from one of my best friends who informed me that another one of our best friends was murdered. And he was, you know, I think about my friend all the time, and he was one of the greatest guys. And you hear that all the time, but the truth is that for us he really was. And so the news hit like a Mack truck. And then I'll never forget the next day being at his mom's house, overrun with anger and having to admit to myself that in that moment I was fully¹¹ aware that we could all leave that house, go and search for whoever we think may have done this and end their lives, and that I would've been able to go home that night and sleep like a baby. Because what happens is, when you feel that kind of pain, time suspends itself and you believe that you'll be 19 forever. You believe that the way you feel in this moment will last forever. And I remember his mother standing¹² in front of us and telling us that no other mother needs to feel what she feels in that moment, and because of respect for her, all of us sort of standing down. Of course moments later, a month later, I'm grateful that we didn't do the thing that we thought we were going to do, right? When you start to sort of work through those things and you come back to reality, time re-animates and you're, like, whoa, my entire life could've changed.

GREENE: You decided¹³ to write this book in the form of poetry. Why did you decide to go that route?

REYNOLDS: I need my young brothers who are living in these environments, I need the kids who are not living in these environments, to have no excuses not to read the book. The truth of the matter is that I recognize that I write prose and I love prose and I want everybody to read prose, but I'm also not - I would never sort of deny the fact that, like, literacy in America is not the highest, especially amongst young men, especially amongst young men of color. It's something that we've all been working very hard on. And my job is not to sort of critique or judge that. My job is to do something to help that. And to know you can finish this in 45 minutes means the world to me so that we can get more young people reading it and thinking, right, and having discussion about what this book is actually about.

GREENE: Yeah, you're right. You open the pages and you immediately see, I mean, just a few verses on each page, and it does feel like this is not intimidating¹⁴. This is not an hours-long commitment.

REYNOLDS: Nope. You know, we talk all the time about how do books - how can books compete with all the other distractions¹⁵ and, you know, stimuli¹⁶ that exists for young people today? The truth is, is that the best thing we could do is figure out what's working and then translate that to the page. It doesn't mean you have to lose the integrity or the sophistication of your work, but it does mean if you really want to affect change in these young people's lives and they're not reading books, figure out how to make them read them.

GREENE: Can I finish by asking you to read something that really struck us from your website 'cause it feels to me - and tell me if I'm wrong, but - it feels to me it really sums up who you are as an author and what you're trying to do?

REYNOLDS: For sure. For sure. (Reading) Here's what I know. I know there are a lot, a lot of young people who hate reading. I know that many of these book-haters are boys. I know that many of these book-hating boys don't actually hate books. They hate boredom¹⁷. If you are reading this and you happen to be one of these boys, first of all, you're reading this so my master plan is already working. (Comical evil-villain laughter). And second of all, know that I feel you. I really do. Because even though I'm a writer, I hate reading boring books, too.

GREENE: Jason Reynolds, thanks for coming in.

REYNOLDS: Thank you, man.

GREENE: The book is called "Long Way Down" by the novelist Jason Reynolds.

1 avenge   

v.为...复仇，为...报仇

参考例句：

• He swore to avenge himself on the mafia.他发誓说要向黑手党报仇。
• He will avenge the people on their oppressor.他将为人民向压迫者报仇。

2 killing   

n.巨额利润；突然赚大钱，发大财

参考例句：

• Investors are set to make a killing from the sell-off.投资者准备清仓以便大赚一笔。
• Last week my brother made a killing on Wall Street.上个周我兄弟在华尔街赚了一大笔。

3 cannon   

n.大炮，火炮；飞机上的机关炮

参考例句：

• The soldiers fired the cannon.士兵们开炮。
• The cannon thundered in the hills.大炮在山间轰鸣。

4 buzzer   

n.蜂鸣器；汽笛

参考例句：

• The buzzer went off at eight o'clock.蜂鸣器在8点钟时响了。
• Press the buzzer when you want to talk.你想讲话的时候就按蜂鸣器。

5 cliche   

n./a.陈词滥调(的)；老生常谈(的)；陈腐的

参考例句：

• You should always try to avoid the use of cliche. 你应该尽量避免使用陈词滥调。
• The old cliche is certainly true:the bigger car do mean bigger profits.有句老话倒的确说得不假:车大利大。

6 psyche   

n.精神；灵魂

参考例句：

• His exploration of the myth brings insight into the American psyche.他对这个神话的探讨揭示了美国人的心理。
• She spent her life plumbing the mysteries of the human psyche.她毕生探索人类心灵的奥秘。

7 forth   

adv.向前；向外，往外

参考例句：

• The wind moved the trees gently back and forth.风吹得树轻轻地来回摇晃。
• He gave forth a series of works in rapid succession.他很快连续发表了一系列的作品。

8 justify   

vt.证明…正当(或有理)，为…辩护

参考例句：

• He tried to justify his absence with lame excuses.他想用站不住脚的借口为自己的缺席辩解。
• Can you justify your rude behavior to me?你能向我证明你的粗野行为是有道理的吗？

9 voyeurs   

n.窥淫癖者（喜欢窥视他人性行为）( voyeur的名词复数 )；刺探隐秘者（喜欢刺探他人的问题或私生活）

参考例句：

• Voyeurs are scary, but they are usually harmless. 偷窥狂很可怕，但是他们通常不会伤害人。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• He also did much to turn Britons into a nation of voyeurs. 他的所作所为很大程度上激起了英国人的偷窥欲。 来自互联网

10 judgment   

n.审判；判断力，识别力，看法，意见

参考例句：

• The chairman flatters himself on his judgment of people.主席自认为他审视人比别人高明。
• He's a man of excellent judgment.他眼力过人。

11 fully   

adv.完全地，全部地，彻底地；充分地

参考例句：

• The doctor asked me to breathe in,then to breathe out fully.医生让我先吸气，然后全部呼出。
• They soon became fully integrated into the local community.他们很快就完全融入了当地人的圈子。

12 standing   

n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的

参考例句：

• After the earthquake only a few houses were left standing.地震过后只有几幢房屋还立着。
• They're standing out against any change in the law.他们坚决反对对法律做任何修改。

13 decided   

adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的

参考例句：

• This gave them a decided advantage over their opponents.这使他们比对手具有明显的优势。
• There is a decided difference between British and Chinese way of greeting.英国人和中国人打招呼的方式有很明显的区别。

14 intimidating   

vt.恐吓，威胁( intimidate的现在分词)

参考例句：

• They were accused of intimidating people into voting for them. 他们被控胁迫选民投他们的票。
• This kind of questioning can be very intimidating to children. 这种问话的方式可能让孩子们非常害怕。

15 distractions   

n.使人分心的事[人]( distraction的名词复数 )；娱乐，消遣；心烦意乱；精神错乱

参考例句：

• I find it hard to work at home because there are too many distractions. 我发觉在家里工作很难，因为使人分心的事太多。
• There are too many distractions here to work properly. 这里叫人分心的事太多，使人无法好好工作。 来自《简明英汉词典》

16 stimuli   

n.刺激（物）

参考例句：

• It is necessary to curtail or alter normally coexisting stimuli.必需消除或改变正常时并存的刺激。
• My sweat glands also respond to emotional stimuli.我的汗腺对情绪刺激也能产生反应。

17 boredom   

n.厌烦，厌倦，乏味，无聊

参考例句：

• Unemployment can drive you mad with boredom.失业会让你无聊得发疯。
• A walkman can relieve the boredom of running.跑步时带着随身听就不那么乏味了。