A Certain Slant of Light

Dreams
by Langston Hughes

Hold fast to dreams
For if dreams die
Life is a broken-winged bird
That cannot fly.

Hold fast to dreams
For when dreams go
Life is a barren field
Frozen with snow.

In Blue Balliett’s Hold Fast the heroine Early’s life is disintegrating. First her father disappears. Then gangsters, possibly connected to his disappearance, destroy the family’s apartment and steal almost all their belongings. Early, her mother, and her little brother are forced to move into a homeless shelter, and Early’s mother begins to sink into despair.

Faced with this domino-line of catastrophes, “hold fast,” a quote from one of her missing father’s favorite poems, becomes Early’s mantra. Hold fast, because otherwise life will carry you away and drown you.

Literary and historical allusions weave through all of Blue Balliett’s work. But in her earlier books, particularly Chasing Vermeer and The Wright 3, these allusions seemed to be the point of the book: as if the book were a puzzle, intellectually stimulating but not very emotionally engaging. The characters were conduits for information about Vermeer and Frank Lloyd Wright.

But as Balliett’s career has progressed, her work has gained more emotional power. The intellectual puzzles have high personal stakes for the characters, and the characters themselves feel more fleshed out. In Hold Fast, Early and her family are as important - no, even more important - than Langston Hughes’ poetry.

In fact, Early’s family is the most appealing part of the book. The immense stress of their situation bends their immense love for each other almost to the breaking point. Eleven-year-old Early becomes the keystone holding the family together. Despite her strength, the job is almost too much for her to handle: but nonetheless, she holds fast.

An excellent book. I definitely recommend this one.