Lewis Michaux was born to do things his own way. When a white banker advised him to sell fried chicken, not books, because "Negroes don't read," Lewis took five books and one hundred dollars and built a bookstore. It soon became the intellectual center of Harlem, a refuge for everyone form Muhammed Ali to Malcolm X.
No Crystal Stair covers Lewis Michaux's life from 1906 to his death in 1976, and while it is interesting, stylistically, it's a bit of a light read, considering it's a biography of a man who lived through two world wars, one great depression, and civil rights era, not to mention his establishment of a long-standing business and friendship with Malcolm X. Vaunda Nelson is Lewis Michaux's grand-niece, and she writes the story from the perspective of various people's reactions to and about events in Lewis Michaux's life. Interspersed with those sections (which are generally not much more than a page long) are illustrations, pictures, and FBI file notes. It's especially appropriate for children (and me) as it doesn't wind up spending too long in any one place, keeping the reader's interest and moving along briskly.
It's a nice book, but it doesn't have a lot of depth to it - it offers a glimpse of the various times and momentous events in Lewis Michaux's life, but aside from his apparently plentiful charm as a salesman, skimps on details of his personality and personal life. It's more of a celebration of life than any real look at how this man achieved what he did. In fact, I could have stood to have this be longer, if Nelson had included more details about how, exactly, Michaux expanded from five books to a store, what he did while he struggled to get the storefront going, and so on. It's hard to get the sense of the journey that he made, especially in light of the fact that the creation of the National Memorial African Bookstore didn't truly begin until Michaux was over 40 years old. I was more intrigued by the bookseller aspect than the African American history one, so I was disappointed by the glossing over of those details.
It is a fun read though, if only for the cameos by black celebrities through time. It's the Forrest Gump of African American culture. Which is the point, really: that one man dedicated his life to creating and fostering the culture of a marginalized people and succeeded beyond anyone's dreams (except perhaps his own). It is a "moving tribute", as PW puts it, one which could and should be in every school library: but someday I'd be interested in seeing what an adult biography of the man would net. No Crystal Stair, unlike the Langston Hughes poem from which it takes its name, is limited by its intended audience, even as it may inspire them to greater and larger things.
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