GIL L. ROBERTSON IV
The song always pops up when you least expect it.
There you are, minding your own business, you hear a few notes, and you’re pulled back to a wonderful-horrible time, starry dreams, laughter, bitterness, love lost. That old love song might be just a “precious melody,” but it almost brings you to your knees.
Love is such a complicated thing: easy to fall into and easy to fall out. And in the new anthology “Where Did Our Love Go,” edited by Gil L. Robertson IV, you’ll see that you’re not alone in being alone.
The statistics are quite sobering.
Forty-two percent of Black women ages 25-34 are unmarried. The number is similar for Black men, higher for those over age 34. African-Americans simply are not keeping pace, marriage-wise, with their white counterparts.
But why? Is it a legacy of slavery, a cultural issue, “being picky,” or economic fall-out? Or is marriage historically “ill-suited” for people of color?
Perhaps, as one writer hypothesizes, relationship woes could be an issue because many young Blacks have never “actually seen…one family unit consisting of a father and mother, plus two children.” Or maybe the timing for marriage was wrong, as another believes.
There’s too much judgment, too much “craziness,” too much self-reliance from too early an age.
And it gets even more complicated.
The old “there aren’t enough decent Black men to go around” is bunk. Malcolm X proved it wrong, though many continue to believe it. Black men often think Black women only want someone equal or better, financially, and how can they play against that? Black women consider “swirling.” Neither can talk about what they really want.
But then—every once in awhile—something magic happens. You meet the right person; you do a dance of courtship, and you find yourself in front of a minister, priest, or judge. You nurture that union, but sometimes you let it go and look for another.
And somewhere along the line, if you’re extraordinarily lucky, the answer to “Where Did Our Love Go?” is “Nowhere. It’s been here all along.”
You know them. You want one. You can’t live without it. And when it comes to that, “Where Did Our Love Go” explains why relationships are so fragile.
With the help of dozens of activists, professionals and essayists (including himself), editor Gil L. Robertson IV examines love in all its messy categories, including the beginning, the goodness, and the end. Readers, I think, will like the varied tones found in this book: some are humorous, with a bit of sarcasm befitting love gone wrong. Others are so sweet that you’ll feel almost voyeuristic while reading. Still others are laced with anger, bitterness, and fist-shaking. And then there are the hopeful ones, which round out the selection and make this book browse-able to match your mood.
(“Where Did Our Love Go: Love and Relationships in the African-American Community,” edited by Gil L. Robertson, IV, c.2013, Bolden, $16/$18.95 Canada, 240 pages. )
USA TODAY BEST-SELLERS
The Associated Press
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2. “The Heist” by Janet Evanovich, Lee Goldbert (Bantam)
3. “And the Mountains Echoed” by Khaled Hosseini (Riverhead)
4. “World War Z” by Max Brooks (Three Rivers Press)
5. “Entwined with You” by Sylvia Day (Berkley)
6. “The Ocean at the End of the Lane” by Neil Gaiman (William Morrow)
7. “Bad Monkey” by Carl Hiaasen (Knopf)
8. “Surrender Your Love” by J.C. Reed (Self-published via Amazon Digital Services)
9. “Happy, Happy, Happy: My Life and Legacy as the Duck Commander” by Phil Robertson and Mark Schlabach (Howard Books)
10. “Conquer Your Love” by J.C. Reed (Self-published via Amazon Digital Services)
11. “Dork Diaries: Tales from a Not-So-Happy Heartbreaker” by Rachel Renée Russell (Aladdin)
12. “The Fault in Our Stars” by John Green (Dutton Children’s)
13. “Joyland” by Stephen King (Hard Case Crime)
14. “A Wanted Man” by Lee Child (Dell)
15. “The Empty Chair” by Jeffery Deaver (Simon & Schuster)
16. “A Game of Thrones” by George R.R. Martin (Bantam)
17. “The 9th Girl” by Tami Hoag (Dutton Adult)
18. “The Hit” by David Baldacci (Grand Central Publishing)
19. “The Great Gatsby” by F. Scott Fitzgerald (Scribner)
20. “Forever Too Far” by Abbi Glines (Self-published via Amazon Digital Services)
21. “Divergent” by Veronica Roth (Katherine Tegen Books)
22. “The Silver Star” by Jeannette Walls (Scribner)
23. “Gone Girl” by Gillian Flynn (Crown)
24. “Proof of Heaven” by Eben Alexander (Simon & Schuster)
25. “Revenge Wears Prada” by Lauren Weisberger (Simon & Schuster)
Reporting stores include: Amazon.com, Amazon Kindle, Barnes & Noble.com, Barnes & Noble Inc., Barnes & Noble e-books, BooksAMillion.com, Books-A-Million, Bookland and Books & Co., Costco, Davis-Kidd Booksellers (Nashville, Memphis), Hudson Booksellers, Joseph-Beth Booksellers (Lexington, Ky.; Cincinnati, Charlotte, Cleveland, Pittsburgh), Kobo, Inc., Powell’s Books (Portland, Ore.), Powells.com, R.J. Julia Booksellers (Madison, Conn.), Schuler Books & Music (Grand Rapids, Okemos, Eastwood, Alpine, Mich.), Sony Reader Store, Target, Tattered Cover Book Store (Denver).
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