In the mid ‘80s, when I was in law school, I participated in a seminar about how American law has treated African-American women over history. One lively discussion that stuck with me concerned whether a white person could ever fully understand, let alone properly describe, the life of a black woman. A classmate, an African-American woman, categorically stated that it couldn’t be done. Sullenly, I maintained that it should be possible.

This conversation came back to me, years later, when I wrote No Castles Here. About half the important characters are African-American. The primary setting is the inner-city in an imaginary neighborhood of Camden, NJ, a city where the majority of residents are African-American. Could I, as a white person write about the African-American experience?

Many, like my colleague back in the 1980s, strongly believe it wasn’t possible for me to do it — as illustrated in this blog discussion about the blurb for the book. But that wasn’t what I had set out to do.

I wanted to portray a poor bullied loser who encounters a bit of magic in his life. Because the references were easier for me, I made him white. I based his character, his family’s character, the neighbors, and the neighborhood on the hundreds of people I met and on the neighborhoods I wandered over the years, in the New Haven area, Brooklyn, and during my short time in Camden and Philadelphia.

Whether I was successful in what I set out to do, others will have to…