Dear Justyce

Part One of Dear Justyce is comprised of flashbacks that chart how Quan, the African American protagonist, ended up where he is in the novel’s present: incarcerated for shooting and killing a white cop, Officer Castillo—a crime, readers later find out, that Quan didn’t actually commit. Part One of the book also includes letters that Quan writes to his friend Justyce, a Black boy who grew up in the same impoverished neighborhood but now attends Yale as a prelaw student.

Quan and Justyce meet when they are 9 and 10, after they both run away from home to the rocket ship structure at the new neighborhood playground. Quan ran away because he couldn’t stand to see Mama’s abusive boyfriend, Dwight, beat Mama again. Two years later, Quan’s life changes forever. Cops violently arrest Daddy for dealing drugs while Quan is staying with Daddy one weekend. At first, Quan vows to be strong for his younger half-siblings, Dasia and Gabe (Mama and Dwight’s kids). But this becomes increasingly difficult when Dwight moves in with Mama full-time, continues to beat her, and seizes control of the family’s finances. Meanwhile, Daddy never responds to Quan’s letters, so Quan feels alone and unsupported—but it’s the final straw for him when Mama believes a teacher’s false accusation that Quan cheated on a math test. Quan steals for the first time when Dwight leaves Mama and the kids with no money and no food. He begins to steal small things in addition to foodstuffs and is arrested when he’s 13, after he steals a pack of playing cards. After this, Mama treats Quan coldly. Fortunately, Quan met an older boy named Trey and the boys become close friends. Quan continues to steal, is in and out of juvenile detention centers, and serves a yearlong sentence for trying to steal a man’s cellphone to buy shoes for his siblings. When Quan finishes this sentence at age 15, Trey decides it’s time for Quan to join the local gang, Black Jihad. The leader of Black Jihad, Martel, is a former soc