Fans of Elizabeth Acevedo, including myself, had been anxiously awaiting her junior novel, and second novel in verse, Clap When You Land. Following the May 2020 release, Clap When You Land received high praise including winning the yearly Goodreads 2020 Choice Award for Young Adult Fiction, and the 2020 Boston Globe Horn Book Honor Award for Fiction and Poetry.
As a huge fan of Acevedo’s first two novels, The
Poet X and With the Fire on High, I had incredibly high hopes, and
somehow, Acevedo went beyond my highest expectations for her most recent novel.
Clap When You Land follows
half-sisters, Camino Rios in the Dominican Republic, and Yahaira (Yaya) Rios in
New York, connecting over the recent death of their father, who died in the American
Airlines flight 587 crash.
AA587 is not of Acevedo’s invention; it was a flight
going from New York to the Dominican Republic in 2001. The accidental crash,
taking place only two months and one day after the September 11 attacks appears
to have been somewhat ignored or overlooked by the media, but nonetheless
brought devastation to the New York-Dominican community. It is the third deadliest
aviation accident in US history following the 9/11 attacks (Aviation Safety).
There were 260 fatalities and zero survivors in this awful New York City crash,
and yet, I had never heard of it before. 68 of the passengers killed were from
the Dominican Republic. About 90% of the passengers were of Dominican descent
(The Guardian).
Acevedo herself was greatly affected by the flight. “I
was 13 years old when that plane crashed. It rocked my community. I mean,
everyone knew someone who was on that flight.” (NPR)
Providing this information is not just to give
historical background, but to emphasize the real pain associated with the topic
of this novel, and the pain Acevedo is working to convey. Although Camino and
Yahaira are not real people, I know there is a Camino or a Yahaira or another
child who lost a loved one in this crash, and can probably relate to one or
both of these characters.
I have to hope that people impacted by this crash find
some sort of healing in this book, but I also hope that readers like me who
were not impacted by it can find solace in the universality of grief, while
also empathizing for those like the sisters even if the reader may not have experienced
something similar. I think reading about experiences we may not be able to
fully relate to is an important exercise in listening to the situations of
others with kindness and openness. No one will ever have the exact same emotions
or experiences, but through reading we can learn about the emotions and
experiences of others to not only broaden our mind but hopefully practice an ability
to listen to and accept others of differing experiences.
I didn’t originally know this was based on a true
event. Having Acevedo contextualize it by showing this was a real plane crash
with real people brought out more empathy from me than I would have thought. I
empathize even with fictional situations, but knowing this book stemmed from
real pain and trauma serves as a reminder that this pain happens both in
fiction and in real life.
By the way, when I say these sisters are connecting
over this death, I mean they had no idea the other sister existed for sixteen
years. Both never knew their beloved father had a secret family in a different
country 1,534 miles away.
I was worried going into this book there would be some sort of lasting taboo of having a half-sister or of not sharing a parent. I am by definition a half-sister, although I never think in that term. I have learned through growing up, and what is presented by Acevedo as well is, the importance of who loved you and raised you, or who comes to love and accept you, not necessarily who created you. Family isn't always the same parents or the same genes, it's love, and these sisters love one another. Although there was shock between the two characters, they grew and adapted to a new and possibly scary situation. Legally, Camino and Yahaira are half-sisters. But just like my sister and I, they are not half-family, they are family.
Full of grief and love, Acevedo does not caution from
showing the pain that the two families are feeling, and yet, these true emotions
being evoked, even including pain, seem to create comfort. By showing these two
families, it is emphasized that everyone may have different experiences, but
grief is universal, although it may feel isolating at times.
In a book dealing with such heavy topics, I was impressed
by is the careful balance of detail and space to imagine when reading the
poems. There are no titles for the poems, but I was drawn to the detail on a specific
poem from Camino’s perspective.
“I keep rocking next to her. Sometimes words
need time to form; the minutes like slabs
building a ramp out the mouth.” (Acevedo, 192)
I continued to mentally repeat the phrase “minutes
like slabs/building a ramp out the mouth”, a line beautifully bringing the
physical (ramps) with the more abstract idea of forming words or time passing,
to create an image of a ramp being built. For me, I was drawn to the imagery
created in such a short phrase, and the impact of these words.
For those who have read Acevedo’s first novel, The
Poet X¸ the prose-like sparsity of the poems is a style readers have seen
before. However, the sparsity is not at all a downside to Acevedo’s work,
because it brings emphasis to what is being said. Acevedo evokes so much
emotion with every word, with space on the page almost like Acevedo, or the
reader, taking a breath between these difficult topics.
I also found the lack of titles interesting. Although
I do not believe titles make a full work less cohesive, but the lack of titles
made it feel like one 400+ page poem to me. Although reminding me of a very
long poem, I did not at all feel a drag of 400 pages. Instead, I sped through it
and could not put the book down. By only indicating the speaker (Camino, Yahaira,
or both) of the poem, I felt as if I were being sat down and told a story by
Camino and Yahaira about their journey together. No titles to separate the
poems remind me of someone telling their life story, which does not often have
a title.
Throughout the novel, the sisters learn that their late
father was far more flawed than the two had thought. Acevedo shows girls
growing up from idolizing their father to being upset and confused by his choices
to forgiving and still loving him. I think the arc the sisters have of learning
not to idolize their father, while continuing to love and mourn him, is an
incredibly realistic yet complex view of growing older and losing a loved one.
The balance and struggle of accepting faults while mourning someone is
something I can relate to, and I appreciated seeing this represented. These characters
acknowledge the faults of their father while learning to accept their own grief
among other mixed emotions, and I think this is incredibly important.
With aching emotions Acevedo creates a beautiful
portrait of grief and love. I was yet again impressed by her and I continue to
look forward to her future writing.
-SS
Works cited: “ASN Aircraft
Accident Airbus A30.” Aviation Safety Network, Flight Safety Foundation,
20 Apr. 2014,
web.archive.org/web/20140420004450/aviation-safety.net/database/record.php?id=20011112-0.
Acevedo, Elizabeth. Clap When You Land. Quill
Tree Books, 2020.
Garcia-Navarro, Lulu.
“Tragedy Reveals 2 Secret Families In 'Clap When You Land'.” NPR, 10 May 2020.
