"Wings of Red": An Education

Gianni Washington

Nov 30

The debut novel Wings of Red is autofiction penned by educator and mentor James W. Jennings that centers learning as a way forward, but not necessarily straight forward. Middle and high school students, friends, family, subway riders, "scribes," the rich, and the poor exchange casual but poignant lessons with our nomadic protagonist on every page. June Papers is a Master of Fine Arts, a substitute teacher, an author, and a Black man with a criminal record. He roams New City—a nickname that leaves out the York—across days that become nights that become days, looking for opportunities: to write, to ride, to observe, to make money, to party, to sleep, and to progress, though toward what remains a beautiful mystery to him throughout. But progress is progress, no matter how small, and it adds up.

Readers first find June shooting dice with a few friends in the apartment they shared on the night before their lease is up. From there, he catches Zs in 24-hour cafes, on trains and couches, he showers at the public library and in hotel rooms he can't afford. No situation—excluding an eventual medical emergency—ever feels insurmountable through June's eyes. You just have to be brave, a thing that can backfire on you according to June: "I thought the questions in life would get easier with acts of bravery, but it seems to me they're landing harder and colder." But neither hardness nor coldness is ever enough to make June stop moving. An object, or human, in motion is better off continuing. He never pauses long enough to risk paralysis beneath the weight of all he has weathered. If he gets a call about a subbing gig, he takes it; if the uncle of a friend of a friend needs his car driven from one state to another and will pay someone to do it, June volunteers; and if a cop happens to pull him over on his way to deliver said car to its owner, June will calmly hand that officer a copy of his novel. The show must go on, and life is a show that doesn't stop until it does so for good. In the meantime, June moves.

His ease among the people of New City—after years spent wandering the streets, alone or with his tribe, among the homeless, whom he calls scribes—witnesses to the world's turnings with stories of their own to tell—and millions of other strangers, all seemingly en route to some unknown destination—feels lived-in on the page. June introduces you to friends and colleagues, sometimes defining the slang they use so naturally, always welcoming you into his experiences despite how easy it would be to shut you out and keep rolling. It's not so hard, he seems to say, to become part of things. All you have to do is be interested, and try. June never fails to show interest in others, making the effort to connect with a young writer in the public library who needs to borrow a phone charger, the wannabe hoop stars in the gym classes he covers, and war vets on line at the post office. Every encounter has the potential to give or to reveal something of value.

Jennings performs a magic trick in which the novel's trajectory seems almost nonexistent. While Wings of Red dances playfully at the edge of aimlessness, it carries you steadily into emotional and existential climax. A refrain of "this is home too" leads June back to a self that he ultimately finds within members of his family. You might think you're being steered toward cliche, but that isn't on this novel's agenda. June's revelations are incisive because of their specificity to him, yet the words maintain enough flexibility to apply to anyone who finds themselves at sea, desperate for new land to discover.

Among the most enduring takeaways offered up by Wings of Red is that the shape of progress is not fixed. You may not even know it for what it is until after you leave it behind. But once it comes, no one can take that knowing from you. They can only watch to see what you do with it.