The memoir, Pulling the Chariot of the Sun, by Shane McCrae, takes a journey through the life of a child who was kidnapped by his grandparents when he was three years old. His mother was white, his father was black, and his grandparents were steeped in prejudice. They took him to Texas in an effort to hide his blackness from him. His mother becomes a very minor figure in his story, an infrequent visitor until he lives with her for a short time as a teenager. Her claim is that if she told him his true story, her parents would never allow her to see him again.
The grandparents begin with the lie that his father abandoned him and build a story from there. As he analyzes their action from a point of maturity, he writes, “For the safety of everyone involved in the kidnapping, least of all the boy’s safety, he must never stop telling the story. The long work of the kidnapping is turning the boy into a machine for protecting his kidnappers.” The book is his effort to tell that story. The years after his abduction are told from Shane’s faulty memory.
A child at three, kidnapped and reconstructed; a boy, growing up beaten by his grandfather for any infraction; a teenager, moved on a seeming whim from one place to another – it is no wonder that times and places intermingle randomly. Toward the end, he asks the question, “Who are you if you can’t be sure when and for how long you lived anywhere?”
Shane had a couple of things going for him. He scored well above average on standardized tests even as he failed at school, and he stumbled into poetry. Then his love of skateboarding followed him from place to place and made friends for him.
If you have ever wondered what happened in news accounts of children who were abducted and placed in a whole new life, this book will give you the picture of one.