His Own Where by June Jordan
"His Own Where" by June Jordan is a poignant novel that explores themes of love, loss, and resilience through the experiences of its young protagonists, Buddy and Angela. The story begins with Buddy's mother leaving the family, prompting him and his father, Mr. Rivers, to reconstruct their home both physically and emotionally in response to her absence. As Buddy grapples with his father's critical condition after an accident, he forms a deep connection with Angela, a girl facing her own difficulties, including an abusive home life. Their relationship blossoms during hospital visits, leading to shared confidences and a strong bond as they navigate their individual hardships.
The narrative takes a darker turn when Angela suffers violence at home, prompting Buddy to support her and seek a safe space for them both. They eventually find solace in a deserted tower room in a cemetery, which they envision as their own sanctuary. Jordan's writing is marked by its lyrical quality and cultural depth, reflecting her commitment to portraying the complexities of young adulthood and the African American experience. Notably, "His Own Where" has influenced other authors in the young adult genre and stands out for its mythic storytelling, drawing parallels to classic tales of star-crossed lovers while infusing the narrative with rich cultural significance.
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Subject Terms
His Own Where by June Jordan
First published: 1971
Type of work: Social realism
Themes: Love and romance, poverty, family, and sexual issues
Time of work: The 1970’s
Recommended Ages: 15-18
Locale: Harlem, in New York City
Principal Characters:
Buddy Rivers , a teenage boy keeping vigil at the bedside of his comatose fatherAngela Figueroa , the girl he meets in the hospital, who is the victim of psychological and physical abuse at homeMrs. Figueroa , Angela’s mother and a nurse, whose indifference toward Angela severs Angela’s last link with her familyMr. Figueroa , Angela’s drunken, abusive father
The Story
When Buddy Rivers’ mother leaves her husband and son, they compensate for her loss by gutting the interior of the house and rebuilding according to their own needs and desires. The flourishing relationship between father and son is described through flashbacks in the novel after Mr. Rivers has been run down by a careless motorist and Buddy waits in vain for his father to regain consciousness.
It is during the hospital visits that Buddy meets, and is drawn to, Angela, whose mother is a private nurse for Mr. Rivers’ roommate. With both parents working at night, Angela, in her early teens, feeds the younger children, cleans and irons, and tries to keep up with her schoolwork. Nevertheless, both parents view her with hostility and suspicion. Buddy’s ready compassion reaches out to the lonely, unloved girl, and they begin to exchange confidences as Buddy walks Angela home from the hospital each night.
When the distrust and anger of her father explode into violence, Angela is brutally beaten. She makes her way to Buddy, who rushes her into the hospital. As a result of the ensuing investigation, Angela is ultimately placed in a Catholic girls’ school in upstate New York. Bereft by her absence, Buddy organizes his friends to demand sex education at school, is suspended, and turns his attention to transforming his neighborhood by bringing all the backyards together to form a neighborhood park.
When Angela writes to him, Buddy visits her. Both youngsters fear the psychological effects of long-term separation, and Buddy resolves to free Angela and find a place where the two of them can love each other in peace. The opportunity to steal away comes during Angela’s first visit home, when her mother rejects her. Meanwhile, Buddy has been exploring the city for possible safe havens. He settles on a deserted tower room in a cemetery near the reservoir, and the two, loaded down with supplies, make their way to the “his own where” of the title, where they begin to make a home.
Context
Jordan is known as a compelling poetic voice with a particular concern for young adults; this, her first novel, retains many of the characteristics of her poetry while it chronicles with taut compassion the series of needs that bring her characters together. The novel fuses its love story with a narrative that celebrates black dialect, culture, and vision. After its publication, other black authors adopted this pattern in novels that, like His Own Where, the critics Kenneth L. Donelson and Alleen Pace Nilsen placed on their Young Adult Honor Sampling: Sharon B. Mathis’ A Teacup Full of Roses (1972), James Baldwin’s If Beale Street Could Talk (1974), and Virginia Hamilton’s A Little Love (1984). What distinguishes Jordan’s work from these titles is its mythic economy, as Buddy and Angela become yet another variation of the archetypal star-crossed lovers, a haunting black permutation of Romeo and Juliet.
Bibliography
Christian, Barbara. Black Feminist Criticism: Perspectives on Black Women Writers. Elmsford, N.Y.: Pergamon Press, 1985. Discusses Jordan in the context of other contemporary African American female writers.
Jordan, June. Civil Wars. Boston: Beacon Press, 1981. Jordan’s first collection of personal/political essays, one of the first such books written by an African American woman in the United States.
Jordan, June. Living Room: New Poems, 1980-1984. New York: Random House, 1985. A collection indicating the direction of Jordan’s poetry.
Jordan, June. On Call: Political Essays. Boston: South End Press, 1985. Carries Jordan’s concerns with poetry, politics, her personal experiences, and Black English into the 1980’s.
Jordan, June. Technical Difficulties: African-American Notes on the State of the Union. New York: Pantheon, 1992. Jordan’s incisive commentary on Martin Luther King, Jr., Jesse Jackson, Clarence Thomas, Anita Hill, and Mike Tyson, as well as responses to the political state of the American nation in the last decades of the twentieth century.
Jordan, June. Things That I Do in the Dark: Selected Poems, 1954-1977. New York: Random House, 1977. Gives a sense of Jordan’s range during the first three decades of her career as a poet.
Tate, Claudia. Black Women Writers at Work. New York: Continuum, 1984. Conversations and interviews with many of Jordan’s peers and fellow artists. Provides a context for Jordan’s work.