Renée Watson’s debut adult novel skin & bones is the result of her graceful transition into a novelist. The nearly four-hundred-page book manages several tasks skillfully thanks to Watson’s background penning poetry and children’s books. Every word is intentional. Some chapters are a single sentence, definition, or short poetic passage expressing a specific idea and evoking a deliberate feeling. The way she optimizes the tools she’s mastered in other literary genres—like using powerful refrains to punctuate chapters—allows her to tell a personal story that does not feel sprawling despite its length.
What Watson attempts in this novel is vital. Among other things, she aptly addresses the need to redefine and illuminate distinct historical perspectives: that of the Black people of Portland, Oregon; the heritage of the story’s main character Lena; and Black women existing within (and without) the traditional standards of beauty. Taking on these three overlapping aspects of history is no small feat. Watson treats the endeavor with the utmost respect.
Black Portland.
Lena’s job at the library involves developing a program to highlight the little-known Black history of Portland, Oregon. The well-meaning white women she works with are an inadvertent yet inevitable barrier to the public event they are planning. They hope to illicit pride within the older Black people born and raised in the city, and inspire non-Black community members. Chapters of the book are titled after some of Portland’s important figures or places. Some consist of biographies or descriptions that could easily be the placard of a photograph or artwork in a museum.
The mini, historical inserts do twice the work. First, the information illustrates the effort Lena has undergone to build out the library’s event despite her white colleagues’ concern about engaging directly with the Black community. They struggle with trying to be anti-racist—wanting to be allies but having difficulty knowing when to speak up without overshadowing the voices of the Black people they claim to support. Secondly, Lena is Watson’s messenger, literally informing readers of actual people, places, and events that deserve recognition. In this era of book-banning legislation, Watson illustrates the need for shovels to remove the dirt from people attempting to bury the past.
Black Family.
The emotional hand-me-downs from parent to child are different from generation to generation in every family. Perhaps the most glaring example is the difference between how parents “parent” their children. Lena has a daughter, Aaliyah. Lena’s relationship with her own mother, Honey, is strained because Honey constantly undermines Lena’s authority when it comes to Aaliyah. Things come to a head when tragedy nearly takes Aaliyah’s life. Sadly, the two women argue over who “let” it happen.
As the family occupies the hospital waiting room hoping for good news from the doctor, Lena and Honey reveal to each other scars the other was unaware of. Honey didn’t feel qualified as a mother raising Lena, but she did what she could, affirming her daughter and making sure she felt loved. Lena, however, faced a rude awakening when she stepped out of the house into an unforgiving world that reshaped how she felt about herself. The walls she built to protect herself, she was teaching Aaliyah. But when she’s at the brink of losing her daughter, and a social worker has questions about the health of their environment, Lena wonders if she’s instead transferred her traumas to her child.
Black Women.
A major theme in skin & bones is beauty and body image and how Black women fit (or don’t) within traditional standards. Lena is the voice of so many Black women who, in this age of “get ready with me” social media, lament the shades of makeup available or ineffectiveness of shampoos by the most popular beauty brands that do not take women of color into account when developing or marketing their products. But more than that, Lena is the voice of women who weigh more than is acceptable within the current, Eurocentric standards of beauty.
Through Lena, Watson scrutinizes how society generally treats Black women by exposing stereotypes and preconceived notions. She begrudgingly (because she shouldn’t have to) makes the case to allow Black women to make space for their bodies and ideas in any and every environment, thereby affirming their value and right to exist anywhere. Lena’s struggle against these stereotypes ebbs and flows, but she seems most vulnerable when it comes to her weight. Every day, Lena faces a cruel world that ridicules and degrades her because she is considered “morbidly obese.”
The book begins with her declaring internally she doesn’t want to “die fat.” She thinks this as she watches her nurse type microaggressions into her patient’s report. Later, readers learn she takes an appetite suppressant, unbeknownst to her mother. By the end of the book, she’s commenting on the event staff. While delivering a keynote speech, she highlights their biases when she arrived. They did not believe she was the keynote speaker and whispered insults when she asked for more appropriate seating for herself. Lena is quite loud and proud when standing up for others, but less so when it comes to herself. It would have been preferable to see a bit more bite to Lena’s response to people’s transgressions. But then that would be telling Lena how to make her space.
Caveat.
I am a Black man, married to a Black woman and raising a Black daughter. Though I connect to this story in certain ways, it is through a limited perspective. On one hand, I am the intended audience—me and everyone else who isn’t a Black woman of a certain size living in a predominantly white city. This novel is a culmination of the experiences of someone who shares this combination of identities as if to say, “See what I/we go/went through just to be?” On the other hand, the intended audience is people who share this experience and may see it as a representation of their story, an affirmation of their value, and an acknowledgment that if you face these same challenges, you are not alone. Telling a story that is at once for people like you and for everyone but is a delicate endeavor—one for which Watson has created the necessary space.
FICTION
skin & bones
By Renée Watson
Little, Brown and Company
Published May 7, 2024
