Born a Crime (2016)

I would have posted this yesterday in lieu of a News Satire Roundup (Last Week Tonight won’t be back for a few months, and The Daily Show was off this week,) but I didn’t finish reading this excellent book until today.  I’d recommend Trevor Noah’s sharp, unflinching memoir to anyone who’s a fan of his, along with plenty who aren’t.

Born a Crime wanders the halls of Trevor Noah’s life from his birth (illegal under apartheid, hence the title) up through portions of his adult life and career as a comedian.  The chapters are arranged only sort-of chronologically, following theme more closely than time.  As much as it’s a book about his life, it’s also a book about South Africa and what it was like living there during the last years of apartheid and the tumultuous times that followed.  Noah doesn’t hold back, and his stories are hilarious, insightful, and devastating, sometimes all at the same time.

It’s kind of a whirlwind book because there’s so much packed into it, but it’s so well written that it doesn’t really feel that way when you’re reading it.  Some passages are surreal in their absurdity – Trevor’s reluctance to use the outhouse on a rainy day culminates in the entire neighborhood packing into his grandmother’s house to pray a demon away.  Others brim with warmth and determination – the way Trevor’s mother raises him as if he’s “white,” as if there are no barriers to what he can do.  Still others cut to the core of the lonely outside in which apartheid placed him – scene after scene of everyone congregating along racial lines and Trevor standing in the middle, not knowing where he’s supposed to go.

Noah does a really nice job weaving in explanations of how life operated under apartheid, providing historical context and examples for people like me who don’t know all this stuff.  He exposes its ludicrous finer points, like the fact that Chinese people were classified Black and Japanese people white, and it was up to the police to figure out who was who and make sure they were living according to their race’s laws.  He examines the procedure by which colored (light-skinned) people could apply to get “upgraded” to white, and he looks at the purposely-hobbled educational system that resulted in him not getting why it mattered that one of his friends was named Hitler.

What also shines through is the indomitable spirit passed onto Noah by his mother.  Despite poverty, despite hunger, despite racism and injustice and civil unrest, despite violence, despite the difficulty of living in a country where people like him weren’t supposed to have existed, his story is one of continually moving forward, not letting any of that define him, not letting his anger or shame about it own him. 

I’ve been impressed with Noah since I first started watching The Daily Show, and every new venture I see from him just increases that.  Now, with this book, I can say absolutely and without qualification:  Trevor Noah is pretty incredible.

Warnings

Strong thematic elements, violence (including domestic abuse,) sexual references, language, and drinking/smoking/drug references.