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What does a self-educated radical bookseller have to do with a depressed 35-year-old strip-mall gorilla? More than it would appear. Both suffer violent childhoods and initially muddle through adulthood. Both grow to identify the oppression around them and decide to challenge it. Both rely on words, and the power of words, to seek justice. Both ultimately make a huge impact. And both No Crystal Stair and The One and Only Ivan, while fiction, are based on real-life tales of perseverance and victory.

No Crystal Stair: A Documentary Novel of the Life and Work of Lewis Michaux, Harlem Bookseller is written by Vaunda Micheaux Nelson, the great-niece of Lewis Michaux. Lewis Michaux’s story requires this “documentary novel” format rather than a typical non-fiction biography, as so much of his life was fabricated, mysterious, or now unknown — beginning with the date of his birth (sometime between 1884 and 1895) and his name (William Lonnell or Lewis H.; some family members use the name Micheaux, with an e). As a child, he was publicly lashed for stealing a sack of peanuts, and as a young man spent time on a chain gang for theft. At some point in the 1930s, he decided to open a bookstore in Harlem because “the so-called Negro needs to hear and learn from the voices of black men and women.” By …

» Continue Reading: Round 1, Match 8: No Crystal Stair vs The One and Only Ivan