The Story of a Community: A Review of Light It Up

Five years ago, Kekla Magoon’s How It Went Down portrayed the fallout of a White man shooting an African-American teenager in a mid-sized Midwestern city – a story based on the killing of Trayvon Martin in Florida. The vignettes in multiple voices created a tragic chorus of those affected by Tariq Johnson’s death. Peach Street continues to be the flashpoint in the country’s racial divide in Magoon’s sequel, Light It Up, which takes place two years later after a White police officer shoots a 13-year-old girl, Shae Tatum.

Many of the ensemble protagonists of Light It Up will be familiar to fans of the earlier book – Tariq’s younger sister Tina, who was one of Shae’s best friends; Tariq’s best friend Tyrell, now in college; gang leader Brick; and Kimberly, a budding activist sexually harassed by Reverend, now Senator, Al Sloan. Other characters are new to this book – Kimberly’s first boyfriend Zeke, a college student and staffer at a local civil rights organization; Tyrell’s classmates DeVante, who is Black, and Robb, who is White; Black high schooler and graffiti artist Will/eMZee and his upper-middle-class stepfather Steve, who is hired by the police department for public relations; the White officer’s daughter Eva; and Melody, who works with disabled children including Shae, Tina, and Brick’s younger sister Shelia.

The city is a battered character in this new novel, with Peach Street and Witness offering poignant testimonies as a kind of Greek chorus. Magoon captures a tragedy repeated – unarmed Black person shot, grand jury that refuses to indict, smug White people far away from the suffering, frustration with an injustice system leading to violence, the disproportionate retaliation of the police and those in power, with more lives ruined. Light It Up lays out the evidence but leaves the reader with little hope because we don’t need fairy tales today. We need to act, to write our own story through action that breaks the cycle of racism and injustice and that can give us hope.