BAD DOGS

A novel tells the story of a Black cadet facing racism at a Southern military college.

When readers meet Jon Quest at the start of Gordon’s book, he’s at the top of his world, the president and CEO of “a large, diversified media and consumer goods company, which owned television, radio and cable stations, and several daily newspapers.” In addition, the company produces “movies, short films, and television sitcoms” and has holdings in several restaurants. Quest has, in other words, achieved the pinnacle of the stereotypical American dream. But as he narrates his own life story, it becomes clear that things weren’t always so happy. In his youth, he found himself a Black man from the North attending a military university in the South, encountering virulent racism from his fellow cadets. The author dramatizes a series of incidents in vivid detail of a type that will be familiar to readers of Pat Conroy’s The Lords of Discipline. In the face of physical and psychological opposition, young Quest not only endures, but also counterattacks, helping to organize his fellow Black cadets and gradually, grudgingly earning the respect of all but the most bigoted of the university’s White students. The adversity fuels Quest’s resolve, as Gordon conveys in prose that can sometimes be overheated: “They cannot touch me. I can do it! I MUST DO IT! Not just for me, but for all who are coming behind me. I am Black. I am strong. I am proud! I pledge this today on my own life!” The characters surrounding Quest are well developed, and the author does a smooth, engaging job of spotlighting the novel’s social issues without letting them dominate the narrative and push the book away from drama into a polemic. And the character of Quest himself stands out as a three-dimensional hero readers can believe in.

A powerfully dramatic tale about overcoming entrenched prejudice in the South.