SIPPI

by John Oliver Killens ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 19, 1967

Mr. Killens has tried to forge the uncreated conscience of his race and has produced a flat, metallic piece of work instead. His novel traces the education of a Mississippi Negro named Charles Othello Chaney. It rings so false to life that even the exciting story of the rights movement in the rural South dies with it. The scene opens when Mississippi receives the news of the 1954 Supreme Court segregation decision and ends in the future--this summer--with the murder of a charismatic black leader. A score of characters, black and white, are introduced: Chaney's parents and friends, southern liberals, homosexual Klansmen, young revolutionaries and Northern hippies. By comparison with Killens' rape of human character and language, Chaney's seduction and abandonment of a white daughter of the plantation South seems kind. Killens has yet to write a good novel and 'Sippi is a member of that sub-literature triggered by propaganda.

Pub Date: June 19, 1967

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Trident

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 1967

Categories: FICTION