HOW TO DODGE A CANNONBALL, by Dennard Dayle
Anders, the teenage protagonist of Dennard Dayle’s impressive debut, the Civil War novel “How to Dodge a Cannonball,” is an idealist, a dreamer, an optimist. And also, a goddamn fool.
Fortunately, damn fools make great protagonists, particularly in satirical novels. Their naïveté allows the reader to gain experience alongside them, and their cluelessness ensures that said experience will be funny as hell, too. Novels in the American satirical cannon dissect a variety of subjects, but their most successful targets have been race and war. “How to Dodge a Cannonball” is about both, and uses that advantage to achieve excellence.
Anders is white and grew up in antebellum-era Illinois, and yet, despite living surrounded by Black people in the free town of Liberty Valley, he manages to be utterly clueless about race. This is partially a product of the ignorance of his mother, Katrina, whose maternal style is why child protective service laws exist. But Anders’s naïveté is also one of his most admirable attributes: His obliviousness allows him to grow to the age of 15 without being indoctrinated into embracing white supremacy.
When the Civil War breaks out, Anders follows the family tradition and enlists in the military … as a flag-bearer. It’s a precarious assignment but Anders works hard at it and has even mastered several killer routines. (While the image of a color guard enthusiastically waving banners while thousands of men murder one another is absurd, it’s also historically accurate. Performers were charged with improving morale for troops heading toward possible death. Flag bearers also garnered respect for their willingness to become the easiest target on the battlefield.)
Anders begins his flag-bearing career for the Union, embracing their goals and mission until he is captured by the Confederate army and “shown the light.” Then he twirls for the Confederacy. (Not that he minds — their food’s better.) When his Confederate platoon is slaughtered in a battle, Anders rethinks his values yet again. Hiding in a hole in the mud, surrounded by dead and mutilated bodies, he comes to the conclusion that, rather than face death, maybe he should give the North a second try.
The best way to return is to impersonate a Union soldier, and searching among the corpses for a uniform to steal, Anders decides to become the recently deceased B.K. Jefferson. The twist: Jefferson is a member of one of the “colored” troops. So, in one of the most illogical decisions in a satire since Huck and Jim decided to sail south, Anders decides that the safest bet for him is to become a Black man. In 1863.
Anders doesn’t look Black, so under his new alias, he tells everyone that he’s an octoroon. Repeatedly. The ruse never really works, but nobody can be bothered to challenge him, and soon he’s surrounded by a cast Joseph Heller might have aspired to create, if Joseph Heller had been Black and writing about the Civil War. This band includes: Corporal Tobias Gleason, a staunch believer in the American Project, and also in the power of experimental theater; a homicidal Haitian revolutionary; a captive white arms dealer even less partisan than the side-flipping Anders; and a young bugler whose identity is revealed to be just as fluid as Anders’s own. Together, this band journeys off the battlefield and into the equally deadly New York Draft Riots of 1863 and beyond, the forces of hypocrisy and absurdity propelling them all the way.
“How to Dodge a Cannonball” was clearly inspired by the rich tradition of Black satire in the American literary canon. The novel calls to mind James Weldon Johnson’s 1912 novel, “Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man,” and Ralph Ellison’s “Invisible Man,” as well as books by Percival Everett, Paul Beatty and other recent masters of the form.
But despite the novel’s pedigree, “How to Dodge a Cannonball” is also refreshingly original. Here is an author capturing, with clarity, our current moment by flashing us back to the past. Dayle’s deft portrayal of American anti-Blackness, class exploitation and cultural uncertainty feels both accurate to the novel’s 19th-century setting and, soberingly, very contemporary.
But this dose of reality never drags the book down. Just the opposite, “How to Dodge a Cannonball” is often laugh-out-loud funny as it roasts America’s hypocrisies. (I received several concerned looks while reading this novel publicly because of the chuckling it induced.) Whether through the story’s ridiculous situations or inspired dialogue, “How to Dodge a Cannonball” keeps the reader off-balance, allowing insights to land hard, fast and relentlessly. It takes an author of rare and exceptional talent to deliver such a knockout punch. Which is why “How to Dodge a Cannonball” establishes Dennard Dayle as a new heavyweight in town.
HOW TO DODGE A CANNONBALL | By Dennard Dayle | Holt | 316 pp. | $28.99
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