Leonard Pitts Jr. new book is called “Grant Park.” (Courtesy Photo)
Leonard Pitts Jr is a columnist at the Miami Herald who is not afraid to mix it up when it comes to race and politics. The South Carolina native’s fourth book, “Grant Park,” deals with the fallout of what happens when a Black newspaper columnist writes an incendiary column about race that his White editor refuses to run.
The novel wrestles with the question of ‘Is America still racist?’
With “Grant Park,” Pitts was interested in exploring in the issue of resentment over race in the workplace. “I just wanted to play with the idea of what if a columnist responded to this in a visceral outburst of anger,” he said, in an interview with the AFRO. “You know, what drives a man to do that.”
“There’s elements of my experience as a columnist, and a lot of black columnists, that inform the world Malcolm lives in,” he said. “You reach a point where the truth is as strange as or stranger than fiction.”
The 2008 Presidential Election between John McCain and Barack Obama is a major plot point in the book that charts Malcolm and his editor Bob’s alternating views on the country’s stability and racism.
Pitts is no stranger to outlandish comments in his column.
“I was trying to get this idea of how crazy and incoherent the country has become,” he said. Pitts jokes that “ Trump as one the leading candidates ” is one of “greatest illustrations of this.”
The historic presidential race serves not just as a backdrop to the racism in the fictional world of Grant Park but also in present day America. Barack Obama winning the election lead people to think “…We have come a lot further than we have.”
Blacks have been dealing with “these issues since the 1960s” said Pitts. The election of a Black president “doesn’t mean are not still abiding.”
Pitts hopes that his novel “ people that #blacklivesmatter didn’t just start with Freddie Gray or Trayvon Martin.”
“It is really shameful that it takes to taking to the streets before some of us in this country wake up,” he said in regards to the riots earlier this year in Baltimore.
“I’m glad to see the community finally.” he said “I’ve been wondering for the past 10 or 15 years where they’ve been.”
“Grant Park” will be published on Oct. 13 by Agate Bolden. For more information go to leonardpittsjr.com.