December 19, 1999|By Jean Thompson | Jean Thompson,Sun Staff
Six months ago, on these pages, I examined the expanding marketplace of books by and about African-Americans. This assignment has been far more difficult, and fun: Wade into the floodwaters, and return with a few well-written books that enhance understanding of the African-American and human experience -- and which illustrate the main categories in which African-American literature may best be examined.
I avoided the obvious. I'll read anything by Walter Mosley, Octavia Butler, Maya Angelou, and newcomer Edwidge Danticat, winners of laurels. I chose to stray from bestseller lists, which rely on sales at mainstream bookstores. I'm indebted, therefore, to discriminating readers who suggested titles off the beaten path.
First novels
A tip from Howard University-based poet E. Ethelbert Miller led me to the "The Intuitionist" (Anchor Books, 255 pages, $19.95). It is a sly and powerful mind-bender. Author Colson Whitehead, 30, a Village Voice television columnist, envisions a steel-hearted metropolis where corporate interests exploit the working class' ideological conflicts. The lonely denizens respond, often hilariously, to the hypocrisy and zealotry of the times. The plot is deceptively simple:
Lila Mae Watson is the first black woman to work as an elevator inspector. She faces career disaster: An elevator that she declared safe has collapsed. Has it been sabotaged? Or has she failed? She sets out to clear her name, and discovers secrets that shake the foundation of her world. Some critics have compared Whitehead to Thomas Pynchon and Ralph Ellison for this political satire about industrialized society and institutional racism.
Two more firsts: Teen-ager Lizzie DuBose inherits an heirloom quilt in "Stigmata" by Phyllis Alesia Perry (Hyperion, 235 pages, $21.95). Soon, she wakes up wearing a slave ancestor's scars. This is the scariest novel I've read since Toni Morrison's "Beloved." The geneaology is confusing, but Perry's command of the terror is impressive.
For a different view of slavery's legacy, read "Any Known Blood" by Lawrence Hill (William Morrow & Co., 368 pages, $24). I had avoided it because the preface seemed lurid. Along came James Fugate, co-owner of Esowon, a black bookstore in Los Angeles: "His writing reminds me of John Irving's. It deserved much more promotion and press. And it's set in your city." I heard the challenge.
Hill taps the unfamiliar history of those who sought freedom in Canada. His character, Langston Cane V, is the mixed-race son of a Canadian doctor and civil rights pioneer, a descendant of runaway Maryland slaves.
Yet he dodges the shadow of his father's achievements and denies his African-American heritage. Cane doesn't find his pride until he moves to Baltimore to find his roots. Be forewarned: The depiction of the city isn't flattering. Also, Hill is blunt, funny and sometimes poignant on the subject of intermarriage.
Reference and history
Seems like I've waited a lifetime for "Africana: The Encyclopedia of the African and African American Experience," edited by Kwame Anthony Appiah and Henry Louis Gates Jr. (Basic Civitas, 2,144 pages, $89.95).
On CD-ROM or in print when available, it belongs in every student's library and school. Peppered with essays, not just recitations of fact, it's a monumental record of the black experience.
The struggles of one African-American parish shed insight into 140 years of race relations in the Catholic Church and the nation's capital. That's what I got out of this humble and refreshingly unvarnished history: "The Emergence of A Black Catholic Community: St. Augustine's in Washington" by Morris J. MacGregor (Catholic University Press, 530 pages, $29.95). Fascinating!
I'm standing in line at home to read "The Messenger: The Rise and Fall of Elijah Muhammad" by Karl Evanzz (Pantheon, 665 pages, $28.50). I'm intrigued: Billed as the comprehensive biography of the controversial founder of the Nation of Islam, it also weighs the dynamics of poverty, oppression and hope that helped fuel a uniquely American religious movement.
Not just for collectors or for the coffee table: "A History of African-American Artists from 1792 to the Present" by Romare Bearden and Harry Henderson (Pantheon, 541 pages, $65) chronicles the artists' struggle for recognition. Baltimore played a role, as a venue for one of the early (1939) exhibitions of black artists.
Poetry
Miller opened my eyes to the works of poet Yusef Komunyakaa, the 1993 Pulitzer Prize winner. Komunyakaa explores the intellectual terrain of racism, Vietnam and jazz. I'm digging his 14-part "Testimony" about jazz saxophonist Charlie Parker in the anthology "Thieves of Paradise" (Wesleyan University Press, 130 pages, $19.95). Plan to work my way back to the prizewinner, "Neon Vernacular." Lighter in tone is Rita Dove's "On the Bus With Rosa Parks" (W.W. Norton, 95 pages, $21). The former U.S. poet laureate (1993-1995) mines memory and family issues. Her tribute to humble Parks is spare, thought-provoking.
