If Beale Street could talk, it would express the joy and anger residing on it and running through it. In the acclaimed novel, If Beale Street Could Talk , James Baldwin tells the story of a young couple, Fonny and Tish. Fonny is an aspiring artist and loving companion, who became a convicted rapist after a series of events, leads him to being wrongly accused.   Tish is an extraordinary young woman that comes from good stock and is a diligent worker just as Fonny.   The piece examines the social order of the United States and places emphasis through the description of their experiences with housing, employment, civic involvement, the criminal justice system, and society's miscellaneous standards.  

Fonny, a young African American man in his early twenties is from Harlem.   He lives alone in a small apartment and spends time regularly with his young lady, "Tish." With plans to move into a new apartment with Tish, Fonny continues working earnestly towards his goal until he was framed for defending Tish in a scenario where she was sexually harassed in a local store.   The cop that responded to the incident was an overt racist that considered himself collecting dues on Fonny by framing him of a heinous crime. After a quick trial and conviction for the rape of a woman he never encountered, Fonny is then incarcerated.

  Tish now has to prepare herself to birth their child while it appears the father will be absent from both the child's birth and subsequent life. The nature of their family's structure is everything but identical. The opposing dynamics of their household ultimately leads the families to interacting episodically to help get Fonny's conviction overturned, so that he and Tish can get married and raise their expected child.  

I'll give the book 4.5 GeoGlobes.

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