Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

Colson Whitehead's new novel, "The Nickel Boys" is so intense I'm having to take a break.  It is painful, disturbing, and based on a real school.  Maybe the break is unfair to Whitehead.  I'm sure he wants us to be horrified and claustrophobic, but I'm an elderly woman who has to pace herself.  I adored "Underground Railroad" for it's successful magical realism, and it was intense as well, but this one is sinking me.  In the meantime, I'm reading "The Warehouse", a not far in the future thriller about a world just a hair's breath ahead of where we are now, and in a bad way.  It's brilliant, and not upbeat either, but at least it's a warning shot, not digging up another layer of racist history of our country.  I will finish "The Nickel Boys" and honor it, but first a slight reprieve.  I protect myself a little bit now, because my grief is so near the surface and can be tapped in a way that overwhelms me.  I'm not the tough reader I used to be.  I hold so much suffering of the world so close to my heart, that I have to make certain I can bear the load without tipping over.