The Other Wes Moore:
One Name, Two Fates, by Wes Moore (Spiegel and Grau, 2014, 233 pages, $25)
The Story
Two black boys grow up in the same West Baltimore
neighborhood, each in a dysfunctional family with a difficult boyhood, and each
gets into trouble with the law – repeatedly and at a young age – influenced by
peers, easy money, and males each is close to.
One goes away to military school, joins the Army as an
officer and deploys, graduates from Johns Hopkins University, spends a semester
abroad in Africa, becomes the first black Rhodes Scholar from Hopkins, interns
with the Mayor of Baltimore, spends a year working with Condoleezza Rice, and
ends up married and on Wall Street, after speaking at the Democratic
Convention.
The other is living a life sentence in a correctional
facility in Jessup, Maryland, for his part in killing an off-duty police
officer during a jewelry store robbery.
Intriguing stories, both.
I had seen this book in my local bookstore a few times and
looked for it in the library but not until the author spoke at my college was I
absolutely convinced I had to read this book: I got it that day. I am
absolutely convinced that you have to read it, too.
Wes Moore spoke to a full auditorium at my college – his
book was chosen as the book of the year, to be read and discussed (and written
about) by all freshmen. But Moore spoke very little of the two lives depicted
in his book (he did tell us how the title was chosen though – and at the last
moment!) and he did not attempt to determine why one boy succeeded and one
didn’t. Instead, Moore spoke of spiritual things, inspirational things, attempting
to gently goad us to action – the last pages of the book give information on
200 organizations we can involve ourselves with, to inspire the disadvantaged
youth of today.
In a Word
Fantastically fascinating story - rather, stories. And very well written. ‘You are there.’ You
become each boy.
Jumps from Moore to
Moore
Moore jumps from one boy to the other throughout the book,
referring to himself in the first person and to the other Wes Moore as Wes. He
even meets the other Wes Moore several times in the correctional facility,
attempting to piece their stories together – in parallel.
In his visit to my college, the author related how readers
might mix up the two boys with the same name. He also stated that it doesn’t
make much difference because their backgrounds were the same: poor and
fatherless. One gets out and one doesn’t – due to a quirk of fate and a mother
who almost gave up, but didn’t.
More Than Just a Good
Story – the Chilling Truth
The Other Wes Moore is a fast read, a book you can’t
put down. The only drawback I noticed was skipping so much of their lives that
might help the reader understand what happened. But perhaps neither Wes Moore
nor the reader can understand what made one boy do one thing and the other, the
other. Events were recounted in easy readable detail but then time skipped
ahead a few years to the middle of another chapter in their lives.
The subtitle of The
Other Wes Moore is ‘The chilling truth is that his story could have been
mine. The tragedy is that mine could have been his.’ What more can I say? The
interpretation of that subtitle and any action you take after reading Moore’s
book is up to you.
I wouldn’t be surprised if it becomes an inspirational movie
and even if the author goes on to accomplish more great things – perhaps
becoming mayor or governor or higher. Reminiscent of Montel Williams and Dr.
Ben Carson who left Chicago’s Cabrini Green’s modern slum for medical school
and eventually became head of Surgery at Johns Hopkins, the author Wes Moore is
destined for great things. How wonderful if the other Wes Moore could have
shared the same destiny.
Why?
The answer to why these two black boys from Baltimore turned
out so differently lies in the future. And in you.
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