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BEST AFRICAN AMERICAN FICTION 2010

A rich compilation, opening up territory for further exploration.

Running the gamut from accessible crime fiction to experimental efforts by critics’ darlings, this ambitious anthology offers a snapshot of modern black culture without being tied to a single theme.

Guest editor Giovanni mixes predictable big names with relative unknowns in the second installment of a new annual series. Edwidge Danticat’s “Ghosts,” set in a Haitian slum, features an aspiring young journalist who learns the hard way just how relative notions of good and evil are in his world. Less exotic but just as sharply observed is Colson Whitehead’s “The Gangsters,” which depicts middle-class youths coming of age in the Hamptons during the summer of 1985. An excerpt from Jewell Parker Rhodes’ novel Yellow Moon takes on voodoo, murder and vampires in modern New Orleans, while Glenville Lovell’s “Out of Body” is told from the point of view of an urban crime lord. Slavery and its bitter legacy are the subjects of several pieces, most arrestingly the opening story, “The Ariran’s Last Life,” in which a young African captive awakens to her mystical power. Kim Sykes provides a welcome shot of levity with “Arrivaderci, Aldo,” narrated by a bored female security guard working at a TV/movie studio. The surprising final selection, “Mary Jane,” shows a young black girl, one of the first to integrate a Southern high school, persevering over shocking prejudice. Serving as a reminder of how far American society has come—in some regards—the piece surprises partly because it’s excerpted from a 1959 young adult novel and partly because the late Dorothy Sterling, who wrote extensively about African-American subjects, happened to be white.

A rich compilation, opening up territory for further exploration.

Pub Date: Dec. 29, 2009

ISBN: 978-0-553-80690-8

Page Count: 320

Publisher: One World/Random House

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2009

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TELL ME LIES

There are unforgettable beauties in this very sexy story.

Passion, friendship, heartbreak, and forgiveness ring true in Lovering's debut, the tale of a young woman's obsession with a man who's "good at being charming."

Long Island native Lucy Albright, starts her freshman year at Baird College in Southern California, intending to study English and journalism and become a travel writer. Stephen DeMarco, an upperclassman, is a political science major who plans to become a lawyer. Soon after they meet, Lucy tells Stephen an intensely personal story about the Unforgivable Thing, a betrayal that turned Lucy against her mother. Stephen pretends to listen to Lucy's painful disclosure, but all his thoughts are about her exposed black bra strap and her nipples pressing against her thin cotton T-shirt. It doesn't take Lucy long to realize Stephen's a "manipulative jerk" and she is "beyond pathetic" in her desire for him, but their lives are now intertwined. Their story takes seven years to unfold, but it's a fast-paced ride through hookups, breakups, and infidelities fueled by alcohol and cocaine and with oodles of sizzling sexual tension. "Lucy was an itch, a song stuck in your head or a movie you need to rewatch or a food you suddenly crave," Stephen says in one of his point-of-view chapters, which alternate with Lucy's. The ending is perfect, as Lucy figures out the dark secret Stephen has kept hidden and learns the difference between lustful addiction and mature love.

There are unforgettable beauties in this very sexy story.

Pub Date: June 12, 2018

ISBN: 978-1-5011-6964-9

Page Count: 352

Publisher: Atria

Review Posted Online: March 19, 2018

Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2018

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A LITTLE LIFE

The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.

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Four men who meet as college roommates move to New York and spend the next three decades gaining renown in their professions—as an architect, painter, actor and lawyer—and struggling with demons in their intertwined personal lives.

Yanagihara (The People in the Trees, 2013) takes the still-bold leap of writing about characters who don’t share her background; in addition to being male, JB is African-American, Malcolm has a black father and white mother, Willem is white, and “Jude’s race was undetermined”—deserted at birth, he was raised in a monastery and had an unspeakably traumatic childhood that’s revealed slowly over the course of the book. Two of them are gay, one straight and one bisexual. There isn’t a single significant female character, and for a long novel, there isn’t much plot. There aren’t even many markers of what’s happening in the outside world; Jude moves to a loft in SoHo as a young man, but we don’t see the neighborhood change from gritty artists’ enclave to glitzy tourist destination. What we get instead is an intensely interior look at the friends’ psyches and relationships, and it’s utterly enthralling. The four men think about work and creativity and success and failure; they cook for each other, compete with each other and jostle for each other’s affection. JB bases his entire artistic career on painting portraits of his friends, while Malcolm takes care of them by designing their apartments and houses. When Jude, as an adult, is adopted by his favorite Harvard law professor, his friends join him for Thanksgiving in Cambridge every year. And when Willem becomes a movie star, they all bask in his glow. Eventually, the tone darkens and the story narrows to focus on Jude as the pain of his past cuts deep into his carefully constructed life.  

The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.

Pub Date: March 10, 2015

ISBN: 978-0-385-53925-8

Page Count: 720

Publisher: Doubleday

Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2014

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2015

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