The Moves Make the Man by Bruce Brooks

First published: 1984

Type of work: Psychological realism

Themes: Friendship, family, race and ethnicity, and sports

Time of work: The 1960’s

Recommended Ages: 13-15

Locale: Wilmington, North Carolina

Principal Characters:

• Jerome “the Jayfox” Foxworthy, an academically and athletically talented teenager, the token black in his junior high school
• Braxton “Bix” Rivers, a troubled yet brilliant boy who believes that one should always be scrupulously honest regardless of the consequences

The Story

Though basketball plays an important role in the novel, The Moves Make the Man cannot be classified simply as a sports story. Instead, author Bruce Brooks utilizes the game, its terminology, and the players as a means of delivering a powerful story about friendship. The protagonist, Jerome Foxworthy, begins the story by reporting the disappearance of Bix Rivers. Jerome feels compelled to tell Bix’s story, to set the record straight. What follows, in flashback, is the story of Bix and his friendship with Jerome.

Jerome first encounters Bix at a baseball game in which a white team travels to the neighborhood to play the local black team. While Jerome believes that baseball is a rather silly game, he is riveted by the performance of the white team’s shortstop. This young man, Jerome realizes, plays the game with absolute concentration and dedication. During the game, a woman, who Jerome realizes is Bix’s mother, arrives. It is obvious from her appearance and actions that she is mentally unstable, a fact that makes Bix ill at ease. Before Jerome can actually meet Bix to compliment his playing ability, he has disappeared from the ball park. This causes Jerome to become unaccountably angry with Bix. Although he understands that Bix has not intentionally slighted him, the disappearance has a lasting effect; Bix becomes Jerome’s phantom opponent on a backwoods basketball court. It is here that Jerome is able to deal with Bix’s comparable athletic prowess as he consistently defeats him in imagined one-on-one competition.

Several events soon conspire, though, to shift Jerome’s attention away from Bix. First, Jerome learns that he is to become the “Mister One Constitutional Negro among all the palefaces” at junior high school because of recent desegregation rulings. Next, because of the coach’s racism he is denied the opportunity to try out for the basketball team. Because of the injury his mother sustains in an elevator accident, however, Jerome has a second encounter with Bix—one that indicates the fragile balance of Bix’s mental state.

Jerome enrolls in the school’s homemaking class so that he can cook for his family while his mother is in the hospital. The only other male in the class is Bix, who reveals his rigid obsession with the truth during a confrontation with their teacher. Bix suffers a mild breakdown in front of the class. Once more he disappears from Jerome’s life.

Jerome and Bix next meet on the backwoods basketball court. It is here that their friendship develops as Jerome teaches Bix the game, although Bix refuses to use any “moves,” or fakes, because they are not honest. During their conversations, Bix reveals that his mother is in a mental institution; his stepfather will not permit Bix to visit her. Bix challenges his stepfather to a one-on-one game in order to win the right to see his mother. In the midst of the competition, Bix realizes that he must use his moves if he is to be victorious. For the first time in his life, Bix is compelled to be less than perfectly honest. Later, though, he must again use his moves when, during the long-anticipated visit, his mother fails to recognize him. Bix feels driven to escape from all the dishonesty, so once again he disappears, leaving Jerome to tell the story.

Context

The Moves Make the Man, selected as a Newbery Honor Book, is Brooks’s first work. Both Midnight Hour Encores (1986) and No Kidding (1989) continue to deal with the question of how best to make life’s difficult decisions. School Library Journal hails Brooks as a major talent in the young adult market, his work is significant for several reasons.

The Moves Make the Man challenges young readers with “shrewd exposition that grows out of complex characterization,” in the words of one critic. Such complexity of character makes the novel a difficult story to read, as it presents characters who are not wholly good or bad. This realistic depiction of characters is a hallmark of Brooks’s works.

Brooks’s extensive use of figurative language—simile, metaphor, onomatopoeia, and allusion—as well as his use of sports jargon, also set his work apart from most other authors of literature for the young adult. Even readers who know little about basketball are able to appreciate the scenes on the backwoods court as Jerome teaches Bix the fundamentals of the game. Instead of Brooks’s audience being limited by these ubiquitous references to basketball, they have attracted readers who may initially read the book for the sports action but who become quickly engrossed by the characters and their conflicts.

Several complex issues are presented in The Moves Make the Man. Brooks deftly handles the disparate topics of basketball, integration, racism, mental illness, and family life without ever losing sight of the real story of Jerome and Bix’s friendship. Jerome’s situation as the token black in his newly integrated junior high is dealt with realistically. In fact, what Bix and Jerome share is the fact that both are thrust into situations not of their making in which they are placed at odds with the general population. How each deals with his situation is, in large part, a reflection of his family background. Brooks thus contrasts functional and dysfunctional families in this work.

The Moves Make the Man is an important work in the young adult field because of its continued popularity with adolescents. Brooks has given his characters distinctive voices that ring true for his readers and deliver a powerful message of hope: “There are no moves you truly make alone.”