but surely these imbeciles have some inkling that Charlie finds working out people living now hard enough ?

Exactly. He's a pretty astute kid, but this is going to freak him out. I just know it is.

I also think that by calling it 'the way things were' really glosses over the fact that there's still racism today, and it's much more subtle - I worry that it will be come too easy to dismiss as something that 'used to happen' and therefore easy to ignore the stuff that still happens today.

Gods, I really don't want to read this book.