Before the Ever After

Zachariah “44” Johnson, Sr. is a football star and a hero in the sports world. To his son, ZJ, he is everything, including his beloved father. Woodson’s choice to depict Zachariah Sr. through ZJ’s eyes shifts the lens away from heroism. The novel becomes a story about what happens when a person’s dreams come true, then fall apart. Woodson’s characters and plot development suggest that this loss is not a life-ending tragedy; instead, the disillusionment of dreams is one of life’s many changes and a natural part of growing up. 

From the outside, Zachariah Sr might look like a tragic hero, but from inside ZJ’s world, Zachariah Sr. is his father, his mother’s husband, and a dreamy music lover. Woodson emphasizes these aspects of Zachariah Sr by only having one scene where he has a football in his hand and only one or two poems that depict him in peak condition as a player. Instead, most of ZJ’s memories are of eating pizza with his dad, riding in the car with his dad, and, most importantly, making music with him. ZJ’s memories also show his father as a loving husband. Many scenes depict nights when the family enjoys each other’s company, playing music, sharing dinner, and reminiscing. ZJ’s parents laugh and “do old-people moves that look like they’re dancing / to the words, not the music” (47). They dance together and embrace at the birthday party and on another evening together in the poem “Good Days.”

These moments fill up the novel both before and after tragedy strikes, showing that Zachariah Sr’s larger-than-life persona has little to do with winning football games and being a physically towering man. His legacy stays intact because it has less to do with winning football games and everything to do with the meaningful relationships he has with friends and family. Since these qualities won’t fade with Zachariah Sr’s illness, the tragic aspects of his story weaken. Woodson instead shows a man going through a change that casts light on what is most important in the lives of all human beings, whether they are classically defined heroes or not. 

Woodson makes this idea plain in the final poem, “Music.” ZJ counts all of the good things the family has after more than a year without football: “my music, our songs,” “the smile that comes when I play,” “his hand holding on to mine,” “this moment,” “my grandmas and auntie at home, / cooking for us,” and more (160-1). The last item is likely the least important because it is the past, not the present: “a game / my daddy always dreamed of playing // and then did play // for a long time” (161). By combining these elements, Woodson has written a story with universal themes about loss and the disillusionment of dreams. 

Recent realistic fiction featuring Black children, especially boys, often takes place in urban, poor, violent environments. The children in those stories often have troubled home lives and have to grow up fast due to their circumstances. The prevalence of these images creates a widespread idea that all or most African American people deal with such challenges as a sort of status quo. This is called a “master narrative.” In Before the Ever After, Woodson uses realistic fiction to counter those master narratives about Black boys. She achieves this by filling the novel with moments where her characters do things that children love to do, like playing, hanging out, and riding bikes. Woodson also counters stereotypes about masculinity in general by showing boys and young men being emotional and loving with one another in the face of adversity.

By paying attention to the small details of character and action, Woodson reminds readers that her characters are children. For instance, the boys ride bikes almost everywhere. When Daniel comes over in “Thanks, Bruh,” he’s wearing “his striped raincoat and blue rain boots, / shivering, his bike with the back wheel still spinning / lying on the lawn” (44). At the party, Woodson depicts Ollie “skid[ding] up on his bike” wearing a helmet (136), saying he had to leave his mom because she was taking too long. One afternoon, ZJ eats “ten cookies standing / at the sink, / wash[es] it all down with one glass of milk and three glasses / of water” and starts to do his homework all before his mother “takes the eleventh cookie out [his] hand” (48-49). These moments showing the boys moving carefree and hurriedly are a pure, detailed reflection of the hustle and bustle of childhood. This image stays intact throughout the novel. After ZJ gives his father’s football away to Everett, in one of the novel’s most adult moments, the boys “go back to slipping and sliding on the leaves, / trying to see who can slide the farthest / without falling” (152). Woodson again depicts the ingenuity of improvised play as a clear marker of childhood. 

Woodson reveals that this characterization choice was intentional in a poem called, “New Normal.” In it, ZJ attempts to make himself a bowl of oatmeal, saying to his mother, “I can do that.” She responds, “But you don’t have to […] Not yet. Be a boy for a little while longer.” (109). In the mouth of this adult, Woodson has revealed her intention to keep ZJ child-like. Mama’s comment also reveals that keeping ZJ’s innocence intact is something she chose to do for her son, even in these difficult times. Placing this moment in a poem titled “New Normal,” Woodson suggests that this child-like depiction of young Black boys is a new normal to which she aspires as an author. Her body of work certainly supports that notion. 

Black fathers who are missing in action is another master narrative. This novel represents a pendulum swing in the opposite direction from that old, false story. It creates a new one where the father is present and emotionally available. 

She goes on to disrupt old stories of hardened masculinity further. Early on, Woodson punctures a common myth about men not crying by having ZJ list all the times he’s known his father to cry. Zachariah Sr. has cried both at sad moments, like not being able to help his sick mother, and at happy ones, like when he was able to buy his mother a house. In the present, Zachariah Sr. “sits at the window, / silent tears slowly moving down his face” (26). These tears reflect his pain and sadness and a departure from the old image of men expressing his pain through anger or violence. 

In “Apple From the Tree,” ZJ’s father calls him a sensitive musician, and ZJ’s mom reminds him that they both are sensitive musicians. Woodson proves it when ZJ teaches his father how to sing a ballad that he wrote. In the middle of the song, Zachariah Sr. “stops singing and looks at [ZJ]. // Then, still holding [his] notebook, he says You got talent, ZJ, / his voice breaking. Then he hugs me so hard” (131). These moments are the norm in the Johnson household.

ZJ and his friends are emotionally available as well, gathering around each other during hard times. Daniel is one of the primary symbols of emotional sensitivity. In “Who We Are and What We Love,” ZJ lists his habit of asking, “You okay, man? You need to talk?” and “really [mean] it. And really [listen]” among the things that make Daniel special (14). When ZJ’s father yells at them, only Daniel takes it seriously. Later, after ZJ’s friends decide to stay away for a while, Daniel is the first to begin visiting again, telling ZJ a story about how they became friends. In their shared afternoon together, ZJ realizes that Daniel is “a whole nother kind of smart” (45), underscoring his emotional intelligence and the role it plays in ZJ’s being able to cope. 

Woodson’s writing of the Fantastic Four and ZJ’s father as open, emotionally engaged, carefree, and innocent is a departure from master narratives that paint darker realities about men and boys in general, and Black men and boys in particular. By writing them this way, she challenges preconceived notions that usually make these figures appear foreboding and inhuman. She has written them into the human family, where they’ve always been, and she has maintained their authenticity through characterization and dialogue. This novel adds to a precedent and might encourage more authors to write about Black men and boys more authentically and freely than ever before.