Dear Sister Souljah, Can You Please Publish the Porsche Santiaga Saga?

Porsche Santiaga - when?

The first novel by Sister Souljah, The Coldest Winter Ever, concludes with a hint of the future for character Porsche Santiaga. The end of the book advertised that Porsche Santiaga's story was coming soon with a release date in 2010. Whenever I checked Sister Souljah's website in 2010 and 2011, the release date was postponed further and further, and then the Midnight stories seem to have arrived as a replacement. I hope that Sister Souljah publishes Porsche's story soon, or at least before the next Midnight story.

The Coldest Winter Ever

In The Coldest Winter Ever, Winter Santiaga is a happy teenage princess living in the projects. She always has plenty of money and admirers. Her father, Ricky Santiaga, is a wealthy drug dealer, and her mother is her best friend. Winter describes how her mother often spends three hours or more applying makeup everyday, and weekly takes Winter to the neighborhood beauty shop to get their hair done. Winter and her mother always cut in line because they are more important than anyone else waiting. Winter has a younger sister Porsche, and two twin baby sisters Lexus and Mercedes. Winter does not have time for a single boyfriend, but has admirers wherever she goes. The only man she cannot attract is Midnight, her father's loyal bodyguard.

At the beginning of the story, Winter's only problem is how she can get Midnight to fall in love with her like in her dreams. Winter's perfect world is shattered when her father hurriedly packs the family up to live in the suburbs for safety reasons. The new home is spacious and luxurious, but Winter and her mother find it boring and miss their friends. Winter and her mother are forbidden to visit the old neighborhood, but her mother misses her sisters and friends too much, and leaves one day for a quick visit. Winter soon gets a call that her mother is in the hospital. Winter's mother was shot in the face by her father's rival gang and survived, but now her mother has a painful and disfiguring injury.

Winter's life continues to spiral downwards, and at the end of the story she has reached the depths of despair. Winter grows up quickly and achieves wisdom and spirituality at a high cost. Soon after her mother's injury, Winter's father is arrested. Their home, car, bank accounts, and all other family assets are seized before they can prepare. Winter and her mother leave the children Porsche, Lexus, and Mercedes with a trusted housekeeper for a few hours, but when they return the housekeeper informs them that the police took the children into protective custody. Winter's mother tries to get the children back, but without a home or income, child protective services refuse to release the children to her care. Winter's mother deals with the depression by becoming a drug addict and prostitute.

Winter roams the streets living with friends and relatives. She reaches out to her crush Midnight, and Midnight refers her to the author, Sister Souljah. Sister Souljah has written herself into the story as Midnight's friend. Midnight admires Sister Souljah for being a respectable woman he compares to his mother. Sister Souljah is mentoring youth, and Midnight hopes that Sister Souljah can mentor Winter and turn Winter into a respectable woman also. Winter lives with Sister Souljah, but does not conform to Sister Souljah's rules and eventually runs away to live with an old high school admirer who is now a young drug dealer.

At first, Winter has part of her old life back, with a luxury apartment and matching luxury furniture. However, her new boyfriend is controlling and abusive and does not let her leave the house without permission. He has spies watching her constantly if she is allowed to leave the house for a few hours. Winter's life eventually mirrors her mother's shattered mirror, with many of the same results. At the conclusion of the novel, Winter is at a funeral years later and sees Midnight. A grown up Porsche Santiaga arrives at the funeral and appears to be following the same path as Winter and her mother. Winter reveals that she wants to talk to her sister Porsche and help Porsche avoid the same fate, but realizes that Porsche won't listen to her and must find out on her own.

Midnight Prequels

With the conclusion of the novel and the advertisement for a new novel about Porsche's story, I expected the next novel to focus on Porsche. Instead, the next two novels in the series are prequels about Midnight's life as a teenager. Midnight is born in Sudan and arrives in New York City as a teenage refugee with his pregnant mother. Midnight is escaping Africa because his father is a wealthy businessman and fears their lives are in danger. Midnight's mother is his father's first wife. His father has two additional wives and more children back at home and is staying behind to care for them. According to their Muslim faith, a man is able to have multiple wives if he can provide separate homes for them.

Midnight's life follows his father in regards to wives in the prequels Midnight: A Gangster Love Story and Midnight and the Meaning of Love. At the age of fifteen, Midnight falls in love with Akemi, a sixteen year old Japanese girl visiting family in New York City. Akemi speaks several languages including Japanese, Thai, and Korean, but does not speak English. Therefore Midnight and Akemi communicate with gestures or require an interpreter on dates. Midnight and his mother are convinced he must get married to avoid consummating their relationship in sin, so Midnight and Akemi receive signatures from their parents and get married. Although Akemi's father signed the paperwork, a few days after the marriage she disappears and has been taken back to Japan by her father, a rich and powerful businessman.

In the second book, Midnight and the Meaning of Love, Midnight travels to Japan during Ramadan to find Akemi and return to the US. On the plane, he meets Chiasa, a half Japanese and half African American teenager. Chiasa offers to help Midnight as a tour guide and translator. Midnight eagerly accepts. Midnight has a lot in common with Chiasa, including martial arts and meditation. Midnight converts Chiasa to Islam because Midnight is fasting for Ramadan, and Chiasa asks questions and decides to fast with Midnight as a challenge and learn about Islam. A lot of bizarre and strange story arcs continue throughout the series, lacking a clear resolution and contrasting with the path outlined in The Coldest Winter Ever.

In fact, in Midnight: A Gangster Love Story, it is revealed that Midnight studies ninjitsu and carries ninja stars, guns, and knives with him everywhere. At the age of fifteen, Midnight is using these weapons to murder gangsters in the projects if he feels they threaten his mother and little sister. You have to read the book to understand, all the elaborate details wind up being quite comical and almost silly like a cartoon. I happened to be watching an episode of Family Guy with my husband, where Peter on Family Guy has one of those crazy song and dance routines with a new character out of nowhere that is his new black son. A song plays, 'my black son, my black son, ... and he just happens to be a ninja!'

Midnight eventually retrieves Akemi after a battle with Akemi's father and associates, but does not return to the US with only one wife. Midnight falls in love with Chiasa and again requires that she marry him before they consummate their relationship. Akemi is not happy and is pregnant with twins by Midnight at the time, but agrees to Midnight's decision. Chiasa's military career father puts Midnight through a deadly obstacle course and tries to trap Midnight into killing himself, but eventually agrees to let his teenage daughter travel to America and be Midnight's second wife after Midnight survives the danger and avoids all the booby traps Chiasa's father set for him. When Midnight returns to the US, both of his wives are pregnant, with Akemi due to deliver twins soon and Chiasa in the first trimester. All of Midnight's friends and relatives are amazed and tell him they are impressed that a young man of sixteen has two beautiful wives so soon.

In The Coldest Winter Ever, there are details about Midnight that are similar to the prequels, and other details that do not match the prequels at all. Midnight is an exceptional athlete and excels at basketball and meets Ricky Santiaga in the prequels. In the Coldest Winter Ever, it is revealed that Midnight was imprisoned for ten years after murdering a man that raped his younger sister. Ricky Santiaga, Winter's father, hires him as a bodyguard after Midnight has trouble finding a job as an ex-con. He is in his early to late twenties in The Coldest Winter Ever, which could be why Sister Souljah chose to have him marry so early in the prequels. However, he lives in a studio apartment by himself and is single when Winter is homeless, but then has a wife in the funeral scene. Midnight is said to have adopted Lexus and Mercedes. Midnight also wrote love letters to Sister Souljah and tried to court her in The Coldest Winter Ever while he was single. Was Midnight trying to gain a third wife, or did something happen to remove Chiasa and Akemi from Midnight's life?

When I checked out these books at the library, the library clerk warned me that the Midnight stories were not as great and a disappointment compared to The Coldest Winter Ever. I agree, and hope to have a Porsche Santiaga saga to read soon that more closely resembles the more realistic life of Winter. Sister Souljah has written that she received tons of fan mail with various versions of 'I am Winter, you wrote my story.' However, from a character analysis that Sister Souljah published at the end of The Coldest Winter Ever, Sister Souljah wants her fans to have a different reaction. Instead of identifying with Winter's selfishness, Sister Souljah wants teenagers to aspire to be better than their surroundings. Sister Souljah questions a lot of societal and political beliefs and instead of defending the character of Winter, Sister Souljah writes that Winter is evil, cold as ice, and deserved all the hardships she faced because Winter had many chances to avoid her path but chose her own ending.

No Disrespect

In my opinion, and from reading Sister Souljah's memoir No Disrespect, I feel that Sister Souljah is too hard on the female characters and glorifies the male characters. Sister Souljah wrote that Winter's mother did not even get a name from her in the story, and was only referred to as Winter's mom or Mrs. Santiaga, because Winter's mother did not deserve to be named and was the lowest of the low. I disagree, because Winter's father was revealed to have cheated on the mother and have a son with another woman. Winter's father also chose to be a drug dealer. However, Sister Souljah seems to think that the male drug dealers and their bodyguards like Midnight are hardworking men, while their wives and girlfriends are evil just because they were courted, supported, and encouraged not to work by their husbands and boyfriends.

In Sister Souljah's memoir, she seems very hard on her own mother, even though her mother worked very hard to support her family as a single mother in the projects. Most of the memoir focuses on friends Sister Souljah met in college, including a boyfriend that is a closeted gay man, and a roommate that is a lesbian. Sister Souljah seems disappointed with their lifestyle despite wanting a non-conventional polyamorous relationship later in her memoir.

A character that somewhat resembles Winter is a friend that was sexually abused when she was twelve. As a teenager and in college, her friend is promiscuous but plays men for as much money she can get without feeling guilty. Sister Souljah is upset with her friend, but does not seem upset with male behavior, and later has somewhat shady behavior herself but justifies her own behavior is honorable.

Sister Souljah seems almost indifferent to a boyfriend that steals everything in her apartment, and later finds out he was married the whole time he was dating her. His wife was upset to find they had been sleeping together, but his wife had knowingly planned all the details to steal Sister Souljah's money along with a fake marriage proposal. Sister Souljah then admires a married pastor and spends months seducing him and then trying to get him to leave his wife for her. When she lies that she is pregnant, he tells her to take care of it and he is staying with his wife and is done with her.

Sister Souljah has several other boyfriends that cheat on her and eventually convinces a new boyfriend that he must be honest with all his sexual partners. When he reveals that he has two other girlfriends, she convinces him to tell the other girlfriends and agree to be in a committed polyamorous relationship. She reasons similar to Midnight's family that a man can have multiple girlfriends and wives as long as all of them are aware of the situation. Her boyfriend breaks up with casual girlfriend A, and brings up the polyamorous relationship with serious girlfriend B that he has known since childhood. Girlfriend B goes crazy and crashes her car into the steps of Sister Souljah's house in a rage, and then the boyfriend drives off with Girlfriend B into the sunset and doesn't call Sister Souljah again.