Review: Prisoner to the Streets by Robyn Travis
by Robyn Travis
Published by OWN IT! 2016
I picked up this book with the idea of reading about something of which I knew nothing: post-code wars in London. Actually, what question I really had was what was the life of a person of color in impoverished neighborhoods like in the United Kingdom. Robyn Travis’s memoir, Prisoner to the Streets did not disappoint in answering my question.
The story follows Travis through his youth, starting with parting from his father when he was very small to becoming a father himself, explaining the first time he was encouraged to fight another boy at the age of five by his mother, and each event following that turned him into a hot-head for the following 18 years.
I was shocked. Mum’s giving me permission to fight. Rah! I went back downstairs with butterflies in my stomach. I was scared to start but compared to how my brother whupped me, I couldn’t see how this boy my age could cause me any real pain. In fact, I wiped the floor with him. I looked up. Mum seemed proud that I defended myself. But I hated fighting […] that day was a turning point.
p. 13
The first third of the book explains his life at school, the fights he would get into and why, how his attitude fueled by his ego developed, and the consequences that it led him to. He was kicked out of school, homeless, separated from his mother, and continuously involved in violence. Travis eases the reader into his changing state of mind, from constant anger to questioning the reality of the life he was living as his friends begin dying, as well as his own recurring injuries due to his heated temper.
The book was written in his own speech pattern, taking on the grammar, slang, and culture of the world he grew up in, always being true to himself. A few of the terms I had to ask around for clarification, such as, “I kissed my teeth,” and, “Wah gwarn” (and my outsider definitions won’t do these terms justice, so I won’t include their meanings here). For the most part, it was written as if the author sat down with a tape recorder and just verbally reflected, then dictated his spoken words. An excerpt reads:
My brother stopped being polite to his Aunty and ran out to the car. By the time I got there he was already kicking Marcus in the head. Marcus was screaming his head off. We tried to pull Marcus out of the car but it drove off before we got the chance. This is a mad ting. Me and my brother backed this boy’s beef so many times. What the fuck possessed him to bring a knife? This prick’s lucky, I could’ve killed him. That’s a madness. I could’ve duppied one of da mandem.
p. 105
There is a cleverness in the way it was written. The idea of the book is to portray the views and life of those living in Tottenham, Hackney, Fields, Holly Street, etc. In order for the reader to get a full understanding, the voice of the writer must be maintained. It helps to put the reader right in front of the writer, to truly hear his voice and his story. Within the voice is Travis’s culture, which gives more than the words themselves could have if it were written in a white-washed, Oxford-standard manner.
However, the downside of this writing style is that it can be difficult to follow at times. Travis would throw in names of people around him that were only relevant to the part of the story at the time, without introduction, or any real knowledge of who anyone was. From a conversational standpoint, this is generally how we would communicate. However, from a literary standpoint, where the reader is trying to create pictures based on what the writer is showing, the best the reader can come up with is generic stick figures with names above their heads. This extends to locations as well. However, Travis does not hold back on expressing the emotion of any situation that he was in. It was easy to pick up on the atmosphere of most scenes.
Half way through, other than a couple of sentences at the end of a couple of scenes, there was very little evidence that the book was going to turn into anything other than recounting the fights held on the streets and the rumors which fueled the drama related to the fights. I was beginning to find myself bored, but I was determined to continue reading. An article written in 2013 in Tottenham & Wood Green Journal called, “Tottenham in Focus: ‘How I escaped the London Post-Code War’,” interviewed Travis about his book. In which, he explained that other movies about the topic of this book failed to produce the positive message that his book did. I was determined to get to the positive message.
The turning point of the book was more than the half-way mark. However, the payoff was rewarding, and well worth pushing through reading about the dozens of aggressions on the streets for Travis and his associates. The ending was truly beautiful, and I do agree with what he said in his interview: there is an extremely positive and up-lifting message at the end of it.
I can’t help but wonder if I found it difficult to read because of my own cultural background, or because it actually was difficult. I grew up in an American middle-class neighborhood that was predominantly white and extremely tame. I grew up having the luxury of never having to stick up for myself violently, or be put in daily situations where it’s fight or die, run or die, kill or die. Because of my background, and because of the many others whose backgrounds are similar, it is extremely important to read works like this, to gain understanding of other walks of life. It is so easy to simply say that those in such neighborhoods are violent without reason, for the fun of it. But this negates the root of the matter, that no one wants to live in that sort of world, and it is an on-going struggle to get out of it.
Robyn Travis has authored another book along the lines of toxic masculinity of the black male, called Mama Can’t Raise No Man. Travis took his experiences and has worked toward helping youths that were raised in the same world, to help them to avoid the same mistakes he made.
If you would like to suggest a book for me to review, please feel free to contact me!
© 2017 by N. J. Thompson, Nicola Thompson, & AuthorNJThompson. All rights reserved.
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