Book Review : David Simmons - Ghosts of West Baltimore (2023)
If you guys aren't familiar with Donald Glover's iconic show Atlanta, you're missing out. It's a surreal comedy that explores both social inequities and the absurdities of modern living through the life of its protagonist Earn, who's trying to manage his cousin into rap superstardom. Atlanta was obviously very influential and its spirit is, along with The Wire, David Lynch and Japanese manga, an inspiration for David Simmons' Ghost of West Baltimore, the de facto conclusion of the arc of his downtrodden protagonist, the aptly named Worm.
In the opening pages of Ghosts of West Baltimore, Worm leaves the hospital after the deadly confrontation at the end of Ghosts of East Baltimore. He is weakened, irradiated and not guaranteed to live very long. He is also handed to a psychopathic parole officer with a passion for violence and chaos named Oloman Toomp. But the forces pulling Baltimore apart are still after him and before long, he’ll have a role to play in this melodrama. Worm will be called to sacrifice himself for a greater good that eludes him.
Street Theatre and The Value of Sacrifice
Ghosts of West Baltimore is very much a sequel to its predecessor as it takes almost every theme from Ghosts of East Baltimore and explores them in a more spectacular and meaningful way. I would go as far as saying you kind of have to read both in order if you want to understand it. But Ghosts of West Baltimore takes this mythological stage play idea David Simmons had devised in the first Worm novel and turns into a full mytho-historical battle between good and evil.
The catch is that it's not that evident which is which: the Antiochians are present again, there’s a plotting Rabbi, two seemingly immortal women named "the Matildas", Oloman Toomp and poor Worm who's not feeling himself. Once again all these people represent a force tearing Baltimore apart: gentrification, religion, Toomp represents the heritage of colonialism for black people, the Matildas are history and Worm, interestingly enough, represents the notion of choice.
What are you willing to sacrifice yourself for? How do you want people to remember you after you died? What evil would you like to stop in the world? These are the questions David Simmons asks in his own, quite colorful way in Ghosts of West Baltimore. Although his novel has a blissful disregard for realism that its predecessor only danced around before committing to, it has an emotional core that can resonate with anybody. Self sacrifice is a powerful tool for building a future.
The Ambiguous Heritage of Oloman Toomp
The most interesting novelty in Ghosts of West Baltimore (aside from a talking, gold plated Tommy Gun) is the inclusion of Oloman Toomp, a man so out of control his capacity for both good and evil is uncertain. Toomp is also quite entertaining in the chapter where he gives Worm a lecture about staying out of trouble while physically abusing him. He's being caring and abusive at the same time, like the ghosts of a generation of parents who only claimed to know what they were doing.
I'm no post-colonialism expert (I loathed that class in college), but there's something there. I don't mean that it's proper to black parents to be both caring and abusive at the same time (I’d be first to know), but the legacy of TAKING abuse and the desire to lash out at the colonial aggressor are alive and well in Oloman Toomp and his memories of Africa. I'm not gonna judge Toomp because it's not my place to, but he had a tension and an ambiguity to him that made him quite memorable.
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I'll keep it real: I think Ghosts of East Baltimore and Ghost of West Baltimore could've been one novel. I wouldn't be surprised to see an omnibus edition coming out over the next year or two. Ghost of West Baltimore almost as good as its predecessor although it lacked maybe some of the relatability of the former. That's why I believe it might've been better served as one novel, but I’d still highly recommend both if you're into weird, reality-bending crime with a twist of mythological thinking.
