Albert Murray, The Hero and the Blues
The Hero And the Blues by Albert Murray My rating: 5 of 5 stars Albert Murray is, as the fashion journalists say, having a moment. His collected non-fiction and fiction/poetry … Continue reading
Ishmael Reed, Mumbo Jumbo
Mumbo Jumbo by Ishmael Reed My rating: 4 of 5 stars Thomas Pynchon’s freewheeling narrator of Gravity’s Rainbow (1973) tells us, “Well, and keep in mind where those Masonic Mysteries came … Continue reading
Tracy K. Smith, Life on Mars
Life on Mars by Tracy K. Smith My rating: 4 of 5 stars This celebrated 2011 volume from the current U.S. poet laureate is her elegy for her father, a … Continue reading
Ta-Nehisi Coates, Between the World and Me
Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates My rating: 4 of 5 stars It is a poor period indeed which must assess its men of letters in terms of … Continue reading
Claudia Rankine, Citizen
Citizen: An American Lyric by Claudia Rankine My rating: 3 of 5 stars Citizen is a prose-poetry compendium of racial microaggressions aimed at a poetic speaker who nevertheless speaks in … Continue reading
Toni Morrison, Paradise
Paradise by Toni Morrison My rating: 5 of 5 stars Paradise was not well received upon its publication in 1997—influential critics like Michiko Kakutani, James Wood, and Zoë Heller disparaged … Continue reading
Nella Larsen, Quicksand
Quicksand by Nella Larsen My rating: 5 of 5 stars This rigorously ironic 1928 novel of the Harlem Renaissance (its author’s first) has itself, in its afterlife, succumbed to an … Continue reading
James Baldwin, Giovanni’s Room
Giovanni’s Room by James Baldwin My rating: 3 of 5 stars James Baldwin is today so universally beloved, so piously received, that it almost comes as a relief to find … Continue reading
Charles Johnson, Middle Passage
Middle Passage by Charles Johnson My rating: 4 of 5 stars Middle Passage begins with an audacious sentence, “Of all the things that drive men to sea, the most common … Continue reading
Toni Morrison, Sula
Sula by Toni Morrison My rating: 5 of 5 stars Sula is an anarchic novel and a conservative one. Toni Morrison, because she is a sort of multicultural figurehead, passes … Continue reading
