Book Review: Smoke Kings by Jahmal Mayfield

Given the systemic injustices Black people continue to face in America today, it’s honestly surprising that more don’t pick up arms and strike out as vigilantes, as the four main characters of this tense and often heartbreaking novel do. Darius is a teenager when he’s beaten to death while walking to catch a train. His killers are acquitted. Four of the people who loved Darius the most channel their rage and grief into finding justice, if not for Darius himself, then for the Black people who were similarly murdered for no reason beyond their race.

Nate, Darius’ cousin, is the vigilantes’ leader. Joshua, Darius’ older brother, is their heart. Rachel, a close family friend, and her fiance Isiah, a tech whiz, complete their team. Alluring Rachel can easily pass as white but embraces her Black heritage. Isiah is Korean but was adopted by a white family who did little, at best, to encourage his interest in his ethnic background. The four friends all loved and encouraged bright, ambitious Darius to succeed. Having him ripped from them is just the impetus they need to start righting historic wrongs.

At first, the friends are united in their targets and methods, tracking down the wealthy, criminal descendants of white folks who got away with lynching Black people in decades, even centuries past. The money they extort from their victims all goes anonymously to the living descendents of the Black dead, as a form of reparations. Alas, cracks soon start to form in the four friends’ alliance, as Nate grows increasingly erratic and Isiah attempts to All Lives Matter their cause. An upset Rachel confronts her fiance over his clashes with their leader:

“Because what matters to Nate, it matters to me as well. Matters to Joshua. You seem to be the only one of us who doesn’t give a shit.”

 

“That’s not fair, Rache.”

 

“We targeted our own kind, and that still isn’t enough for you.”

 

“There you go with that tribal bullshit,” Isiah said. “I feel sorry for you, Rache.”

 

“Don’t.”

 

“[Our target]’s darker than you, and Nate picked at him, said he wasn’t black. That didn’t bother you?”

 

“Nothing I haven’t heard before. You yourself made a comment about my lil’ drop of black. That lil’ drop is more powerful than a million drops of something else.”

 

“Listen to you,” Isaiah said. “I think you actually hate the white part of yourself.”

Though our protagonists do their best to keep it together, united by their shared love and commitment to justice, things eventually fall apart. When they choose the wrong target and the violence goes too far, they soon become the quarries themselves, as a conflicted former lawman finds himself caught between them and their even worse adversaries.

Smoke Kings is the kind of book where what you get out of it depends a lot on what you come into it with. I had little patience for Mason Farmer, the supposed average guy trying to track down the vigilantes, who subsequently gets caught in the middle. I understand the point of him as a character, but I could have genuinely done without the amount of time spent in his viewpoint chapters trying to absolve himself of his frankly unacceptable racism. This is not at all, however, an indictment of the book, which does an exemplary job of showing the many different and difficult facets of race relationships and racial conflict in America. It’s just that I as a brown person face enough racism in my daily life to feel truly comfortable reengaging with the self-justifying thought processes of those who actively diminish me based on my appearance. Perhaps some readers will see their own similarity to Mason and reconsider their own choices though.

I had a lot more empathy for the vigilantes, and especially for Joshua, who knows full well what he’s sacrificing when he chooses his path:

If he was honest with himself, though he’d hoped it wouldn’t come to this–blood on their hands–he’d known the chance existed. Nate had become increasingly volatile. And they’d all seen it and allowed him to seduce them into continuing. Joshua hadn’t liked who he was becoming, either, who he’d become, and had thought it best to leave [his girlfriend] Alani out of it, out of his life period. So, he’d broken it off with her. Other than the shit with his little brother, the breakup with Alani was the most difficult thing he’d dealt with in a long time–ironic they should happen back-to-back. His mother talked often about seasons of trouble. Maybe this was his.

For being the emotional heart and relatively calm center of this novel, Joshua has the most clarity, even as he’s operating from a place of unspeakable pain. The path of vengeance is lonely and, while not entirely futile, open to causing far more harm than good. The endings of this novel are deeply unsettling, befitting the subject matter but not at all making for a feel-good read. It is, however, a realistic look at the unending cycle of violence that can seize a nation when the justice, education, and welfare systems fail to truly care for their peoples.