YELLOW BACK RADIO BROKE-DOWN

by Ishmael Reed ‧ RELEASE DATE: Aug. 1, 1969

Given the Acid test, this is a stoned fantasy written on high glee and black hipster credos. Yellow Back Radio is an outback western town where hero Loop Garoo ends up with his freak circus. But the kids have driven the oldsters out of town, having ""decided to creat their own fiction"" and the backlash comes when Ranch Czar Drag Gibson massacres them. Loop escapes and decides to voodoo up a little hoodoo to get back at Drag with hexes to the solar plexus (at one point Drag's men are trampled by Giant Sloths). Finally Drag calls in the Pope who tries to persuade Loop to come home (?). Raw, rollicking, irreverent, Mr. Reed is not as heavy-handed as he was with his Free-Lance Pallbearers (1967, p. 1163). He's a preachy Chester Himes and just as cheeky with characters such as Royal Flush, Mighty Dike and Mustache Sally and eye-stopping lines like. ""It was Bo Shmo and the neo-social realist gang."" Look for your local anarchist--soul sassy-fras.

Pub Date: Aug. 1, 1969

ISBN: 1564782387

Page Count: -

Publisher: Doubleday

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 1969

Categories: FICTION