Janie Crawford is the main character of "Their Eyes Were Watching God". At the beginning of the story, she is described as naive, beautiful, and energetic. However, as the story progresses, Janie is constantly under the influence and pressure of gender norms within her romantic relationships. As she navigates each of her relationships with men, Janie ultimately loses her confidence and self-image, conforming to roles that the husbands want her to fill.


Then, in Janie's second relationship, she left Logan Killicks in an attempt to pursue a better future with her new husband, Joe Starks. Joe was the Mayor of Eatonville and achieved incredible wealth, placing Janie in a higher status than her peers, since she was "sleeping with authority, seating in a higher chair". Janie believed that her life would change for the better. However, she was confined in the roles of a housewife and was made to be Joe's prized possession. "The king's mule, and the king's pleasure is everything she is there for, nothing else".


In Janie's third and last relationship, she was able to experience true love, on her own terms, with her third husband Vergible "Tea Cake" Woods. Janie was older than Tea Cake by nearly twelve years. He loved and treated her better than her previous husbands. While she was no longer strictly confined by the gender roles placed upon her by her previous husbands, she was still easily influenced and manipulated by Tea Cake. Janie was forced to shoot and kill Tea Cake in self defense after he developed rabies.


Logan has traditional views on marriage. He believes that a man should be married to a woman, and that she should be his property and work hard. Everyone contributes to tending the family land. He believes Janie should work well from dawn to dusk, in the field as well as the house, and do as she is told. She is analogous to a mule or other working animal. He is not an attractive man by Janie's description of him and seems to be aware of this. As such, his prospects at finding a mate based on attraction and his age are slim, thus the reason for approaching Nanny early on about an arrangement of marriage to Janie when she comes of age.


During the course of their brief marriage, Logan attempts to subjugate Janie with his words and attempts to make her work beyond the gender roles in a typical marriage. He does not appreciate her streaks of independence when she refuses his commands and he uses her family history to try to manipulate her into being submissive to him. At one point, he threatens to kill her for her insubordination in a desperate and final attempt to control her.


Joe "Jody" Starks is Janie's second husband. He is charismatic, charming and has big plans for his future. Janie, being young and naive, is easily seduced by his efforts to convince her to leave Logan. Ultimately, Joe is successful in gaining Janie's trust and so she joins him on his journey. Joe views Janie as a princess or royalty to be displayed on a pedestal. Because of her youth, inexperience, and desire to find true love, Jody easily controls and manipulates her into submitting to his male authority.


Jody is a jealous man, and because of this he grows more and more possessive and controlling of Janie. He expects her to dress a certain way (buying her the finest of clothes, with tight corsets) and requires that she wear her long, beautiful hair—symbolic of her free spirit and femininity— covered and up in a bun, so as not to attract too much unwanted attention from the other men in Eatonville. He considers her long hair to be for his enjoyment alone. He excludes her from various events and the social gatherings in Eatonville to further his dominance and control over her. He restricts her from being friendly with the other townswomen, requiring her to behave in a separate and superior manner.


However, Tea Cake shows tendencies of patriarchal dominance and psychological abuse towards Janie. He isn't always truthful with her and shows some of the same characteristic traits exhibited by Joe Starks and Logan Killicks. For instance, he keeps her from working with the rest of the people down on the muck because he believes she is above common folk. Consequently, until Janie asserts herself with Tea Cake and joins the others in working, she gains a bit of a reputation for thinking herself better than everyone else.


In a show of male dominance in their relationship, Tea Cake takes $200 from Janie without her knowledge or permission and spends it on a nice guitar and a lavish party with others around town without including her in the festivities. While accounting for his spending of her money, he tells Janie that he had to pay women that he deemed unattractive $2 each to keep them from the party. He then gambles the remaining amount to make the money back and excludes her from the gambling scene. What differentiates him from Joe in this regard is that Janie regularly confronts him and he acquiesces to her demand that she not be excluded from aspects of his life.


Another tendency that Tea Cake shares with Joe is his jealousy and need to maintain some amount of control over Janie. When he overhears another woman speaking poorly to Janie about Tea Cake and attempting to set her up with her brother, Tea Cake decides to take matters into his own hands. First, he discusses with Janie, a conversation he overheard between her and Mrs. Turner, a local café owner. He criticizes Mrs. Turner's appearance (like Janie, she is mixed-race) and then successfully executes an elaborate plan to ruin her establishment. Finally, he slaps Janie around in front of Mrs. Turner and others to show them that he is in charge and to assert his ownership over her.


In the end, Tea Cake plays the role of hero to Janie when he saves her from drowning and being attacked by a rabid dog. Tea Cake himself is bitten and eventually succumbs to the disease. Not able to think rationally and enraged with jealousy, he physically attacks Janie and she is forced to shoot and kill Tea Cake. Therefore, she effectively ends her emotional attachment to the men in her life and the desire to seek out and realize her dream of true love.


Janie does not find complete independence as a woman until after the death of Tea Cake. She returns to Eatonville with her hair down and she sits on her own porch chatting with her friend Pheoby. By the end of the novel, she has overcome traditional roles and cultivates an image of the "liberated black woman."


Throughout the novel, Hurston vividly displays how African American women are valued, or devalued, in their marital relationships. By doing so, she takes the reader on a journey through Janie's life and her marriages. Janie formed her initial idea of marriage off the beautiful image of unity she witnessed between a pear tree and a bee. This image and expectation sets Janie up for disappointment when it came time to marry. From her marriage to Logan Killicks to Tea Cake, Janie was forced to acknowledge where she stood as a powerless female in her relationship.


Hurston wrote "Their Eyes Were Watching God" while living in Belle Glade, at the home of Harvey Poole, who, as manager of one of the local labor camps, informed her tremendously about bean picking, and the labors of African-Americans on the muckland. The book was also written while on a Guggenheim Fellowship in Haiti to research Obeah practices in the West Indies.


Hurston's political views in "Their Eyes Were Watching God" were met with resistance from several leading Harlem Renaissance authors.


Novelist and essayist Richard Wright condemned "Their Eyes Were Watching God", writing in a review for "New Masses" (1937): Miss Hurston seems to have no desire whatsoever to move in the direction of serious fiction… [She] can write; but her prose is cloaked in that facile sensuality that has dogged Negro expression since the days of Phyllis Wheatley... Her characters eat and laugh and cry and work and kill; they swing like a pendulum eternally in that safe and narrow orbit in which America likes to see the Negro live: between laughter and tears.


Ralph Ellison said the book contained a "blight of calculated burlesque."


Alain Locke wrote in a review: "when will the Negro novelist of maturity, who knows how to tell a story convincingly—which is Miss Hurston's cradle gift, come to grips with motive fiction and social document fiction?"


"The New Republic"s Otis Ferguson wrote: "it isn't that this novel is bad, but that it deserves to be better". But he went on to praise the work for depicting "Negro life in its naturally creative and unselfconscious grace".


Not all African-American critics had negative things to say about Hurston's work. Carter G. Woodson, founder of "The Journal of Negro History" wrote, ""Their Eyes Were Watching God" is a gripping story... the author deserves great praise for the skill and effectiveness shown in the writing of this book." The critic noted Hurston's anthropological approach to writing, "She studied them until she thoroughly understood the working of their minds, learned to speak their language".


Meanwhile, reviews of Hurston's book in the mainstream white press were largely positive, although they did not translate into significant retail sales. Writing for "The New York Times", Ralph Thompson states: "the normal life of Negroes in the South today—the life with its holdovers from slave times, its social difficulties, childish excitements, and endless exuberances... compared to this sort of story, the ordinary narratives of Negroes in Harlem or Birmingham seem ordinary indeed."


For the "New York Herald Tribune", Sheila Hibben described Hurston as writing "with her head as with her heart" creating a "warm, vibrant touch". She praised "Their Eyes Were Watching God" as filled with "a flashing, gleaming riot of black people, with a limitless sense of humor, and a wild, strange sadness".


"New York Times" critic Lucille Tompkins described "Their Eyes Were Watching God": "It is about Negroes... but really it is about every one, or at least every one who isn't so civilized that he has lost the capacity for glory."


As universities across the country developed Black Studies programs in the 1970s and 1980s, they created greater space for Black literature in academia. Several prominent academics, including Henry Louis Gates, Jr. and Addison Gayle, Jr., established a new "Black Aesthetic" that "placed the sources of contemporary black literature and culture in the communal music and oral folk tradition". This new respect coupled with a growing Black feminism led by Mary Helen Washington, Audre Lorde, Alice Walker, and others would create the space for the rediscovery of Hurston.


Hurston first achieved a level of mainstream institutional support in the 1970s. Walker published an essay, "Looking for Zora", in "Ms." magazine in 1975. In that work, she described how the Black community's general rejection of Hurston was like "throwing away a genius". The National Endowment for the Humanities went on to award Robert Hemenway two grants for his work to write Hurston's biography. The 1977 biography was followed in 1978 by the re-issue of "Their Eyes Were Watching God".


In 1975, the Modern Language Association held a special seminar focusing on Hurston. In 1981 professor Ruth Sheffey of Baltimore's Morgan State University founded the Zora Neale Hurston Society. Hurston had attended the school, then known as Morgan Academy, in 1917.


In 1978, Harper and Row leased its rights to "Their Eyes Were Watching God" to the University of Illinois Press. However, the printing was so profitable that Harper and Row refused to renew the leasing contract and instead reprinted its own new edition. This new edition sold its total print of 75,000 in less than a month.


The "New York Times"s Virginia Heffernan explains that the book's "narrative technique, which is heavy on free-indirect discourse, lent itself to poststructuralist analysis". With so many new disciplines especially open to the themes and content of Hurston's work, "Their Eyes Were Watching God" achieved growing prominence in the last several decades. It is now firmly established in the literary canon.


On November 5, 2019, the "BBC News" listed "Their Eyes Were Watching God" on its list of the 100 most influential novels.


In a conversation with Jody, Janie defends 'womenfolk,' disagreeing with the sexist claim that God made men "different" because they turn "out so smart" (70). When she states that men "don't know half as much as you think you do," Jody interrupts her saying, 'you getting too moufy Janie... Go fetch me de checker-board and de checkers' (70–71) so that he and the other men could play (Bernard 9).


Oreo is a satirical novel published in 1974 by Fran Ross, a journalist and, briefly, a comedy writer for Richard Pryor. The novel, addressing issues of a mixed heritage child, was considered "before its time" and went out of print until Harryette Mullen rediscovered the novel and brought it out of obscurity.


The book has since acquired cult classic status.


Ross uses the structure of the Theseus myth to both trap Oreo and allow her to reinvent it. Oreo's white father, who abandoned her, forces her to live out this inherently white, male narrative. However, the trope of lost patriarchy is essential in black cultures so Oreo can reappropriate the myth and make it entirely non-foreign. Furthermore, Oreo reinvents the archaic myth by living a black narrative through it, suggesting that blacks can reappropriate themes from the white culture they are forced to live in. The search for paternity within the Theseus myth is essentially futile since Oreo gains nothing from finding her father, which undermines the importance placed on the search for paternity.


"Oreo" is a picaresque novel, that revolves around our picaroon, Oreo. It is a fictional tale about the adventures and conflicts she faces on her search for her father. It falls under the category of Post Soul Aesthetic, modern works that expands upon the possibilities of the Black experience, and arguably New Black Aesthetic, works that describes the black experience from the perspective of the culturally-hybrid, second generation middle class. The comedic style of the novel helps to subvert the trope of the "tragic mulatto" and position Oreo as a "thriving hybrid."


The novel is told from the perspective of an omniscient, third-person. The novel strays from traditional narrative form. The novel exemplifies the essence of postmodernism, fragmentation through its structure.The chapters are broken into subsections. The novel uses diagram, equations, menus, tests, ads, letters, other sources to break and supplement the narrative.


Ross employs different narrative structures throughout the course of the novel. Mainly, the episodic nature of the book is similar to the picaresque story structure. The charisma and wits of Christine, especially in contrast to the foolishness of characters like Parnell or even her father, exemplify the use of this narrative. Elements of the bildungsroman are also present, such as the contrast of the cultures of Christine's upbringing in Philadelphia compared to that of New York.


Most notably, "Oreo" draws heavily upon the Theseus myth, so much so that a quick reading guide at the end of the book summarizes the story's events in terms of the myth. The names of the novel's chapters are also references to the Greek myth.


While the novel is told from a third person omniscient point-of-view, there was a strong and deliberate choice to have the reader still be limited in fully understanding what goes through Christine's mind. While her journey is fun and adventurous, Christine runs into certain situations in the novel that can be viewed as traumatic. For example, her near-rape at the hands of Parnell and her viewing of her father's accident are both very extreme events that elicit immediate and raw emotion, yet the reader does not get that from Christine. The reader never gets to go deeper into Christine's mind and is never let in to her true feelings about the journey that she takes to find her father.


Ross brings to the forefront new figures that are usually not represented in talks of Black identity. In Oreo she presents the characters of Jimmie C., the feeble-hearted, fainting nerd, Jimmie's best friend, Fonzelle Scarsdale, a hyper-sexualized F-student with a choreographed heavy walk, the flamboyantly dressed pimp, Parnell, and Kirk the sexual beast with an oversized phallus.


The novels uses a broad spectrum of languages, including African American vernacular, Yiddish, superstandard language, louise-ese, math, rhyme, singing. Christine's skillful navigation among this broad array of languages points to her cultural hybridity. She is capable of code-switching and interchanging, and communicating with all these languages and their users.


Oreo can also be viewed as searching for her identity, since she feels that neither "Jewish" nor "Black" fully define her experience. Oreo is in multiple spaces where others assume her identity and treat her according to their assumptions. Oreo never had the opportunity to immerse herself into both of her racial designations, and she believed that finding her father would give her the missing piece of her identity. She was trying to transcend race and find her individual identity.


Upon its republication by Northeastern University Press in 2000, the then nearly thirty-year-old novel was praised for being ahead of its time. "Oreo" has been hailed as "one of the masterpieces of 20th century American comic writing." Furthermore, one critic elaborated that "Oreo" was "a true twenty-first century novel." The novel's "wit is global, hybrid and uproarious ... simultaneously irreverent, appropriative and serious. It is post-everything: post-modern, post-identity politics, post-politically correct." Novelist Paul Beatty also included an excerpt of "Oreo" in his 2006 anthology of African-American humor "Hokum". In June 2007, Cultural critic Jalylah Burrell listed the book on VIBE.com as the number one work in African-American literature that should be adapted into a major motion picture, writing, "Quirky comedy with surrealist elements, i.e., Wes Anderson meets Kaufman/Gondry."


The novel was adapted by Adam Davenport into a screenplay intended as a starring vehicle for Keke Palmer. The project is yet to be produced.


Erasure is a 2001 novel by Percival Everett and originally published by UPNE. The novel reacts against the dominant strains of discussion surrounding the publication and criticism of African American literature.


Erasure is about a writer dealing with death, murder, and growing old. The novel's plot revolves around many things, but is essentially about the consequences of turning one's art into a simple commodity; i.e. giving into market forces. The market force within Erasure mirrors the late-90s reality around how the publishing industry pigeon-holed Black writers, and centered or valued certain experiences [those of the urban poor] over others. Themes around race, class, loyalty to family, sex, the theory of language, the life of canonical western artists, abortion, and sexual identity are also explored as the novel unfolds.


Like many Everett novels, "Erasure" is experimental in structure. Part of the novel's structure involves the multiple embedded narratives, written by the main character Thelonious "Monk" Ellison, including his mock-novel titled "My Pafology". "The Guardian" described as a "skilful, extended parody of ghetto novels such as Sapphire's "Push"." The novel includes other narrative styles within the larger narrative frame, including an academic paper, personal letters, story ideas, imagined dialogue between fictionalized historical characters, and, in the final section, the end of "Erasure" as written by Stagg R Leigh, Monk's alter ego.


The novel was well received. "The Guardian" focused on the dark comedy that it represents, describing it as moving towards "bleakest comedy" and "sly work." Ready Steady Book focused more on the novel being "full of anger" about the African American literary establishment, but describes the most redeeming elements of the plot coming from " moving portrait of a son coming to terms with his mother’s life."


The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman is a 1971 novel by Ernest J. Gaines. The story depicts the struggles of African Americans as seen through the eyes of the narrator, a woman named Jane Pittman. She tells of the major events of her life from the time she was a young slave girl in the American South at the end of the Civil War.


The novel was dramatized in a TV movie in 1974, starring Cicely Tyson.


Some people have asked me whether or not "The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman" is fiction or nonfiction. It is fiction. When Dial Press first sent it out, they did not put "a novel" on the galleys or on the dustjacket, so a lot of people had the feeling that it could have been real. ... I did a lot of research in books to give some facts to what Miss Jane could talk about, but these are my creations. I read quite a few interviews performed with former slaves by the WPA during the thirties and I got their rhythm and how they said certain things. But I never interviewed anybody.


The book was made into an award-winning television movie, "The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman", broadcast on CBS in 1974. The film holds importance as one of the first made-for-TV movies to deal with African-American characters with depth and sympathy. It preceded the ground-breaking television miniseries "Roots" by three years. The film culminates with Miss Pittman joining the civil rights movement in 1962 at age 110. Critics have noted the language to be difficult to understand by viewers not familiar with the dialect and accent of the characters.


The movie was directed by John Korty; the screenplay was written by Tracy Keenan Wynn and executive produced by Roger Gimbel. It starred Cicely Tyson in the lead role, as well as Michael Murphy, Richard Dysart, Katherine Helmond and Odetta. The film was shot in Baton Rouge, Louisiana and was notable for its use of very realistic special effects makeup by Stan Winston and Rick Baker for the lead character, who is shown from ages 23 to 110. The television movie is currently distributed through Classic Media. The film won nine Emmy Awards in 1974 including Best Actress of the Year, Best Lead Actress in a Drama, Best Directing in a Drama, and Best Writing in Drama.


Joy (1990) is a novel by Marsha Hunt about the relationship between two African-American women that is based on secrets, lies and delusion. Mainly set in a posh New York apartment in the course of one day in the spring of 1987, the novel contains frequent flashbacks that describe life in a black neighbourhood in the 1950s and 1960s. The book also deals with stardom in the music business and some people's inability, despite their riches, to make their own American Dream come true and to lead fulfilled lives.


The first person narrator of the novel is Palatine Ross, a 70-year-old cleaning woman originally from New Orleans, whose childhood is dominated by poverty and loss.


Shutting her eyes to all the evil in the world and firmly relying on God and the words of the Bible as guidance, Palatine tries to raise Joy and her sisters to be educated, honest and religious members of society. The fact that, growing up in a rough neighbourhood, the not-yet-teenaged girls are very early in their lives confronted with sex willingly escapes her notice. It troubles Palatine a great deal when Dagwood, her neighbour's new boyfriend, starts spending the night with the girls' mother. One morning during the summer vacation, while his girlfriend is at work and Palatine is taking care of the children, Dagwood stays on in the apartment.


Right from the start, Palatine tries to take the three girls along to church, seeing that their blaspheming mother will never do so. Time and again, in the course of more than twenty years, Palatine tries to convince Joy that finding herself a nice coloured boyfriend whom she could marry and have children with would be the right thing to do. However, "Chocolate Chip" remains a one-hit wonder after an interview given by Brenda to some gay magazine in which she announces her coming out as a lesbian.


However, rather than being able to mourn Joy's death, she for the first time learns things about Joy which finally force her to abandon her blinkered view of her "God-sent child" and admit that she was a sinner rather than a saint.


Yellow Back Radio Broke-Down, by the African-American writer Ishmael Reed, is a satirical take on the traditional Western. It is Ishmael Reed's second novel, following "The Freelance Pallbearers" (1967), and was first published in 1969. It tells the story of the Loop Garoo Kid, an African-American cowboy who practices the religion of Neohoodooism, and describes his struggle against established religion and cultural oppression.


"Yellow Back Radio Broke-Down" is a western that spans some three centuries of history and references locations from across the United States landscape. Through the three colorful protagonists, Chief Showcase, a Native American, Drag Gibson, a white land capitalist, and the Loop Garoo Kid, an African-American cowboy, Reed criticizes the hypocrisy of the American Church, the warping of history to degrade the portrayal of African Americans, and ways the "white man" attempts to destroy the "black man".


"Yellow Back Radio Broke-Down" jumps into the narrative of the main protagonist, Loop Garoo, a black, silver tongued, circus cowboy, who represents the devil to the white men. The circus troupe heads into Yellow Back Radio, a sparsely populated ghost town overtaken by a child population in Indian garb. The circus troupe and the children are massacred by the adults that were chased out by the children, while Loop Garoo escapes with his life and a desire for vengeance. Drag Gibson, a homosexual and influential land-owner who is head of the city, is also introduced.


As Drag deals with the problems from a deteriorating city, Loop Garoo is saved from being eaten by wild animals by Chief Showcase, a Native American who fights his oppressors through suave and underhanded means. Loop begins his Hoodoo curses on Drag, giving him the retroactive itch and other inconveniences, as the conflict builds.


Drag murders his sixth wife and orders his seventh through the mail-order service. Her name is Mustache Sal, a nymphomaniac who seeks to murder Drag to inherit his vast fortunes. She proceeds to have sex with just about every main and minor male character, showing a complete lack of discrimination. As Drag continues into a progressively more deteriorating state of mind because of the uncontrollable loss of power and influence around him, Loop Garoo continues to gain influence through his appearance in town, soundly whipping the marshal and pushing the Preacher into the brink of insanity.


The Loop Garoo Kid is an African-American cowboy and Neohoodoo houngan. He combats the imperialism and monopolistic greed of Drag Gibson and organized religion, casting spells and summoning Loa to assist him. His struggle against Gibson symbolizes his fight against the power structure and repressive elements of white culture. He embodies African-American culture and religion; his art is as diverse and adaptable as the Hoodoo rituals he performs. Loop Garoo is the apocryphal brother of Jesus Christ, the love interest of the Virgin Mary, and the high priest of Neohoodooism.


Drag Gibson is an influential landowner who represents the impact of white culture on the West, the rapacious greed of land capitalists, and the rigidity of Judeo-Christian values. He rules the town of Yellow Back Radio from his ranch house with a small army of ranch hands. A blatant racist with no regard for human life, he kills off a total of seven wives by the end of the novel. Drag clashes with Loop Garoo and Neohoodooism until he is finally eaten by Yellow Back Radio's steel-jawed hogs.


Chief Showcase is the last surviving Native-American in the Yellow Back Radio region. After Drag Gibson slaughtered his tribe, he began writing militant poetry about white imperialism. Reed portrays Showcase as spiritual and advanced - he travels in a helicopter that confuses and terrifies his provincial white adversaries. Showcase fights back against his oppressors by playing both sides of an escalating conflict between Drag Gibson and the powers in Washington, D.C., working to stir up trouble between the powerful Western landowner and the greedy Federal Government.


Zozo Labrique is a Hoodoo mambo who travelled with Loop Garoo's circus. She taught Loop Garoo connaissance, or Hoodoo magic, and was killed by Drag Gibson's cowhands when they burned down the circus. She reappears in the novel as a Loa called upon by Loop Garoo during his summoning ritual.


Mustache Sal is Drag Gibson's nymphomaniac mail-order bride. She marries Drag with the intention of poisoning him and inheriting his land, but he discovers her plan and feeds her to the executioner's steel-jawed hogs. In contrast to the Black Cougar Saloon's Hurdy Gurdy girls and Drag's previous wife, The Horrible Hybrid, Mustache Sal displays independence, intelligence, and open-mindedness. She doesn't discriminate racially in her personal associations, consorting with Loop Garoo, the ranch hands, and Chief Showcase alike.


Reverend Boyd is the Protestant minister of Yellow Back Radio. He tries to connect with the youth of the town, hosting light shows for them, but his efforts fail. He turns to alcohol for comfort and is ridiculed by Loop Garoo and Pope Innocent. He is killed by the Pope with a can of DDT-based insecticide.


Field Marshal Theda Doompussy Blackwell is a member of the U.S. military brass who schemes with Chief Showcase to take control of Drag Gibson's land. Reed portrays the Field Marshal as weak, petulant, and possibly homosexual, poking fun at the typically virile stereotype of the military man.


Reed interweaves the basic tenets of a religious aesthetic called Neohoodooism throughout the text. He achieves this chiefly through the statements of the Loop Garoo Kid, the spiritual high priest of Neohoodooism. The religious side of Neohoodooism has its roots in the African-American folk magic of Hoodoo, which Reed claims is based on the West African religion of Vodoun. Loop Garoo's summoning of various Loa and hexing of Drag Gibson confirms these religious roots.


Neohoodooism is also an artistic aesthetic which values multicultural hybridism. The Loop Garoo Kid uses Neohoodooism to fight Drag Gibson, a symbol of the intolerance in white culture. Their battle represents the struggle of an inclusive African-American culture against a rigid Judeo-Christian one.


Reed explains that he linked the religious and aesthetic aspects of Neohoodooism together because the one is a metaphor for the other; both aspects are essentially amalgamations: "Voodoo is the perfect metaphor for the multicultural. Voodoo comes out of the fact that all these different tribes and cultures were brought from Africa and Haiti. All of their mythologies, knowledges, and herbal medicines, their folklores, jelled. It's an amalgamation like this country."


"Yellow Back Radio Broke-Down" was received with varied criticisms: "Neil Schmitz, in an essay on Reed's fiction in "Twentieth Century Literature" (April 1974), judged "Yellow Back Radio" "to exhibit a 'simplistic' focus and 'diffused' energy, although many readers found it to be a comic tour de force."


"Yellow Back Radio Broke-Down" has been cited as an important precursor or model for the 1974 satirical Western film "Blazing Saddles", a connection that Reed himself has made.


"Yellow Back Radio Broke-Down" was rated one of the 100 Best Books in the 20th Century by the "American Book Review" and a "San Francisco Chronicle" poll.


The Salt Eaters is a 1980 novel, the first such work by Toni Cade Bambara. The novel is written in an experimental style and is explicitly political in tone, with several of the characters being veterans of the civil rights, feminist, and anti-war movements of the 1960s and 1970s. It is set in the fictional town of Claybourne, Georgia.


The novel opens on Minnie Ransom, the "fabled healer of the district", performing a healing on Velma Henry who has attempted suicide by slitting her wrists and sticking her head into a gas oven. Velma, a community activist who has worked in various leftist movements, has suffered a nervous breakdown due to the increasing factionalism in the activist community of Claybourne as well as her failing marriage to Obie, another activist, and the pressures of her job as a computer programmer at Transchemical, a chemical plant in the neighboring town.


The entirety of the novel's action revolves around the healing, with the planning of the upcoming Spring Festival serving as backdrop. The point-of-view of the novel shifts numerous times between characters. "At once spiritual, apocalyptic, mysterious, cacophonic, and destabilizing, "The Salt Eaters" offers a unifying epiphany of creation and community."


The Between (1995) is the first novel by writer Tananarive Due. It was nominated for the


A middle-class African American couple's life is shattered when the wife begins receiving death threats. The husband begins to experience an alternative reality so real he has trouble grasping which is real. His psychiatrist diagnosis him as a latent schizophrenic. The family must decide if its schizophrenia, are the dreams a cosmic death threat or has the husband become unstuck from this reality and become stuck between worlds.


Part horror novel, part detective story and part speculative fiction, "The Between" is a mix of genres. Yet it is no hybrid. It is a finely honed work that always engages and frequently surprises. <br>-- JAMES POLK, "The New York Times"


The lengthy autobiographical essay by Due elucidates the history and context of her first novel "The Between" among many other works and details of her life. Due also subtly suggests the horrifying thought that pervades the story but is left tactfully unspoken: if each of us creates our own reality, then ultimately we are all alone in the world.


On the Come Up, published on February 5, 2019 by Balzer + Bray, is a young adult novel by Angie Thomas . It tells the story of Bri, a sixteen-year old rapper hoping to fill the shoes of her father and 'make it' as an underground hip-hop legend. Overnight, Bri becomes an internet sensation after posting a rap hit which sparks controversy. As Bri defeats the odds to 'make it' she battles controversy to achieve her dreams. It is set in the same universe (Garden Heights) as Thomas' first book "The Hate U Give".


The book was well reviewed by The New York Times, Vox, and The Washington Post.


The American Library Association named the book one of the best released for young adults in 2020.


"On the Come Up" received several accollades:


On February 4, 2019, Fox 2000 Pictures acquired the rights to adapt the novel with George Tillman Jr. directing and producing with Robert Teitel, and Jay Marcus from State Street Pictures, alongside Thomas Marty Bowen, Isaac Klausner and John Fischer of Temple Hill Entertainment. On December 11, 2019, after Disney acquisition of 21st Century Fox and closing of Fox 2000, Paramount Players acquired the film adaptation with Kay Oyegun hired to write the script and Tillman Jr. still attached to direct. On October 19, 2020, Wanuri Kahiu replaced Tillman Jr. as director of the film.


If He Hollers Let Him Go is the first novel by American writer Chester Himes, published in 1945, about an African-American shipyard worker in Los Angeles during World War II. It earned him critical acclaim and was considered a "protest novel", in the tradition of Richard Wright.


The book was adapted as a 1968 film, starring Raymond St. Jacques, Dana Wynter, Kevin McCarthy, Barbara McNair, and Arthur O'Connell. The screenplay differed markedly from the novel.


The story spans four days in the life of Robert "Bob" Jones, a newcomer to Los Angeles from Ohio. With some college education, he works as a crew leader in a naval shipyard. In this period, black workers are gaining opportunities in the defense industry as a result of executive orders of President Franklin D. Roosevelt during World War II.


However, Jones cannot escape the pressures of racism. He believes he was promoted as a supervisor only to gain the cooperation of black workers in the war effort. He is forced to deal with anti-communist paranoia, resentment from whites on the floor working at the same jobs as "colored boys", and the baiting of black workers by some white females.


His fears invade his dreams, aspirations, and passions. His dream of making something of himself in California is jeopardized as he reacts to the actions of the white people around him. He struggles to contain his urges to fight, kill, and rape as ways to overcome his resentment of white power arrayed against him.


The main characters are the protagonist, Bob Jones, and two women: Madge Perkins, who is white; and Alice Harrison, his higher-class African-American girlfriend. Bob struggles for place in a white-dominated world and is filled with violent thoughts against white people, but does not act on them.


In what is described as a "sexually charged novel", Madge makes a racial slur toward Bob. His calling her a "bitch" results in his demotion. He considers raping her as a way to get back at white America, seeing her as a symbol of "whiteness", but when she expresses sexual attraction to him, he rejects her. Alice tells Bob it is no use getting angry about the inequality that blacks must live with, and he has to learn to deal with it.


Themes addressed in the novel include racism suffered by blacks, color differentiation among African Americans (Alice's light skin is associated with her higher class), employment discrimination against blacks, and class divisions among whites and blacks. Communism is featured generously, as the Communist unionists ("agitators") are the only ones who talk about the issue of race in any way with which the protagonist agrees. There is some reference to jazz.


The novel is referred to in Frantz Fanon's book, "Black Skin White Masks" (1952), first published in French, in the chapter titled "The Fact of Blackness".


Critics praised this first novel by Himes, classifying it in the "protest novel" tradition established by Richard Wright.


Brown Girl, Brownstones is the debut novel by the internationally recognized writer Paule Marshall, first published in 1959, and dramatized by CBS Television Workshop in 1960. The story is about Barbadian immigrants in Brooklyn, New York. The book gained further recognition after it was reprinted in 1981 by the Feminist Press.


Book 1. A Long Day and a Long Night.


Ten-year-old Selina Boyce lives in a brownstone in Brooklyn with her Barbadian immigrant family: her mother Silla, father Deighton, and sister Ina. Silla is a strict, no-nonsense woman whose goal is to save enough money to purchase the brownstone they are leasing. Deighton is lackadaisical, impulsive, and he frequently cheats on his wife. His dreams of returning to Barbados and his frivolousness are a source of tension between Silla and him. Deighton inherits a piece of land; Silla wants him to sell it so they can buy the brownstone, but Deighton has fantasies about moving back and building an extravagant house. Suggie Skeete, Miss Mary, and Miss Thompson are a few other characters who appear sporadically; Selina goes to them for companionship and advice.


Book 2 opens with a brief description of Deighton and Silla's drawn-out argument over selling the piece of land, and Selina imagining herself as one of the sleeping children who lived in the brownstone before the Boyces. Selina starts to think about womanhood and growing up. She goes to the park with her friend Beryl, where they have an argument about how babies are born: c-section or vaginal birth. Beryl confides to Selina that she has started menstruating. Selina is confused and somewhat repulsed by the idea, as she believes it will never happen to her. In reality, Selina feels left out and confused by puberty.


World War II is in progress at the start of the third book; this section spans a few years, beginning when Selina is around eleven and ends when she is fifteen. Book 3 is titled "The War" partially in reference to the war, but also in reference to the continuing argument between Silla and Deighton about his piece of land. A group of a few other Bajan women visits Silla in her kitchen while she makes Barbadian cuisine to sell. She vents her frustrations about the land, but she comes with a plan that will get it taken care of. Selina overhears, and Silla threatens to punish her if she tells her father.


Selina searches for someone she can tell about Silla's plans because she wants to protect her father. Deighton, still jobless, begins to devote his time to studying the trumpet. He believes that music will be his next get-rich-quick scheme. Selina tells him about the conversation Silla had with the other Bajan women and her plans to somehow sell the land, but reassures him that it's probably nothing to worry about. She fights with her sister, feeling ignored and unloved. Ina says that no one will ever like her because of her bold and brash personality.


Selina tells Miss Thompson about her fight and her concerns about her mothers plans. Miss Thompson, being a maternal and nurturing person, tries to help by distracting her. She fixes Selina's hair in curls, then Selina heads to her mother's work with the intention of confronting her about her plans to sell the land behind Deighton's back. Silla chastises her for travelling to the part of town by herself at night.


Silla reveals that she has successfully sold Deighton's land for nine hundred dollars. Over the course of a year, Silla forged letters to Deighton's sister and granted his sister the power of attorney to sell the land. Deighton seems to be resigned to this fact, and agrees to take out the money the following day. He is gone the entire day, which raises Silla's suspicions. Deighton comes home with an abundance of frivolous and extravagant gifts. Silla mourns the loss of the money that could have gotten them the brownstone.


The community attends the wedding of ’Gatha Steed’s daughter, which turns out to be an extravagant celebration. Deighton shows up to the reception, but it is clear that everyone know what he’s done, and he is essentially excommunicated. He severely injures his arm while incorrectly using machinery at a factory job, then begins to follow a cultist religion lead by a man called Father Peace. Deighton he demands to be called "Brother Boyce", and he renounces his family to be with other followers of Father Peace. Silla calls the authorities to have him deported back to Barbados. The family receives news that Deighton either jumped or fell off the ship that was on its way to Barbados, and he drowned.


Since her father's death, Selina's grief has removes her even further from the community. She attends a party hosted by her childhood friend, Beryl, where Selina learns about the Association. She realizes that her peers are all conforming to their parents’ wishes rather than deciding their futures for themselves. Selina begins college. Silla owns the brownstone, and she works to get rid of Miss Mary and Suggie. Miss Mary passes away, and Silla is able to evict Suggie on the grounds that her promiscuous behavior seems suspiciously like prostitution. Selina loses two of the people she's closest to in a short span. Convinced Silla's doing it on purpose, she becomes even angrier and more reclusive.


Miss Thompson reveals to Selina how she got the sore on her leg. It was the result of a racist attack while she was in the South, where a man injured her with a shovel. She also encourages her to attend an Association meeting so she can re-connect with her "people" and her culture a bit more and stop feeling so alienated. Selina begrudgingly agrees to go, but she tells the group they are money-hungry, narrow-minded, etc. and their concerns are petty compared to what they have to face in the white world.


Selina meets Clive, a melancholy artist about ten years her senior. He initially seems to share a lot of Selina's personal values, and they begin a secret relationship. Selina joins her school dance team, discovering she has natural talent and enjoys it. Silla finds out about Clive, but Selina lies and says they are just friends. Silla warns Selina about him, saying that he is not the sort of person she should hang around with.


Selina decides to rejoin the Association under the pretense of wanting the scholarship they are offering. She plans to take the money and use it to run away with Clive. Selina dances a sola in a recital and has a racist encounter with one of the other dancer's mother afterwards. Selina goes straight to Clive's, and realizes that he never meant to go away with her. Selina leaves her copy of the key to his apartment and returns home to cry herself to sleep.


Selina wins the Association scholarship, but she declines the award. In private, she tells her mother she never stopped seeing Clive and what she had planned to do with the money. Selina plans to leave school and go to Barbados alone. The novel ends with Selina walking alone and tossing one of the silver bangles she has had since she was a baby towards a set of brownstones that are being torn down for a city project.


"Remarkable for its colorful characters, the cadence of its dialogue and its evocation of a still-lingering past." — "New York Times Book Review""


"Marshall brings to her characters ... an instinctive understanding, a generosity and free humor that combine to form a style remarkable for its courage, its color, and its natural control." — "The New Yorker""


"An unforgettable novel written with pride and anger, with rebellion and tears." — "New York Herald Tribune"


The tension between the themes of individualism and ethnicity are explored in Martin Japtok's essay "Paule Marshall's "Brown Girl, Brownstones": Reconciling Ethnicity and Individualism", which concludes: "The simultaneous assertion of ethnicity and individualism must thus be accomplished through a constructionist conceptualization of ethnicity that allows one to see ethnic solidarity as an original response to an Old World environment that still has validity in the New World, though maybe not the same urgency. […] Selina accepts ethnic communalism while pursuing an individualist agenda, creating a new conceptualization of ethnicity in the process".


Betsey Brown is an African-American literature novel by Ntozake Shange, published in 1985.


"Betsey Brown" is the story of an adolescent African-American girl growing up in 1959 St. Louis, Missouri, who is part of the first generation of students to be integrated in the public school system. She navigates common adolescent issues such as family dynamics, first love, and identity questions.


Thematic concerns of the novel include African-American family life, coming of age, feminism, and racial freedom. One critic described the narrative structure of the novel as paralleling "the personal story of Betsey’s attaining self-confidence with the social achievements of the Civil Rights Movement." This structure allows Shange to address feminist issues in addition to racial issues.


In order to write the novel, Shange drew on her own experiences growing up in St. Louis, but the resulting novel is not entirely autobiographical. Nevertheless, like Betsey Brown, Shange really did know such African-American celebrities as Chuck Berry and W. E. B. Du Bois.


"Betsey Brown" was published in 1985 by St. Martin's Press.


Set in the aftermath of Brown v. Board of Educationm —the landmark case in which the US Supreme Court ruled that laws establishing separate public schools for black and white students were unconstitutional—the novel is eponymous.


Though perhaps the least known of Shange's work, the novel has been called "a little gem."


Shange adapted the novel into a musical play, which has been performed in various cities.


Love (2003) is the eighth novel by Toni Morrison. Written in Morrison's non-linear style, the novel tells of the lives of several women and their relationships to the late Bill Cosey.


Cosey was a charismatic hotel owner, and the people around him were affected by his life — even long after his death. The main characters are Christine, his granddaughter and Heed, his widow. The two are the same age and used to be friends but some forty years after Cosey's death they are sworn enemies, and yet share his mansion. Again Morrison uses split narrative and jumps back and forth throughout the story, not fully unfolding until the very end. The characters in the novel all have some relation to the infamous Bill Cosey.


Similar to the concept of communication between the living and the dead in her 1987 novel "Beloved", Morrison introduced a character named Junior; she was the medium to connect the dead Bill Cosey to the world of the living.


The storytelling techniques in "Love", namely the split narrative, suggest a recent trend in Morrison's literature that divides the plot among different time periods.


Casanegra: A Tennyson Hardwick Story is a 2007 mystery novel by actor Blair Underwood and writers Tananarive Due and Steven Barnes. The book was released on June 19, 2007 through Atria Books and is the first book in the "Tennyson Hardwick" series. "Casanegra" follows the adventures of Tennyson Hardwick, an actor and former gigolo. A sequel, "In the Night of the Heat", was released in 2009.


Underwood has expressed interest in filming an adaptation of "Casanegra" with himself potentially starring as the character of Tennyson Hardwick.


Tennyson "Ten" Hardwick is an actor trying to make it big in Hollywood, which is made difficult by his past as a gigolo that sold his body to anyone willing to pay the right price. This past has caused a distance between Tennyson and his family, especially his LAPD captain of a father. However overcoming his past proves to be harder than he imagined after Tennyson finds himself the prime suspect for the murder of Afrodite, a rapper and former client of his.


Underwood came up with the book's concept after working on a project with Diana Ross that would have had the two acting as a client and her gigolo. The project never came to fruition, but Underwood continued to work on the concept until he approached Due with the idea of writing a novel based upon a gigolo. The first draft of "Casanegra" was written by Due and subsequent drafts were co-written with Underwood and Barnes. The team drew on Walter Mosley and Zane for some of the book's influences and included several recognizable Hollywood features such as the restaurant chain Roscoe's House of Chicken and Waffles and the African-American owned bookstore Eso Won Books.


Critical reception was mostly positive. Entertainment Weekly and Publishers Weekly both gave mostly positive reviews for "Casanegra", with Publishers Weekly praising the book as a "seamlessly entertaining novel".


Legendborn is a debut young adult fantasy novel by Tracy Deonn. Called "a modern day twist on Arthurian legend" it follows a Black teenage girl who discovers a secret historically white magic society while attending a UNC-Chapel Hill residential pre-college program. The book is the first in the "Legendborn" series. It was released on September 15, 2020 and published under Simon & Schuster/McElderry. The book was recommended by BuzzFeed, Nerdist, and io9.


The book centers 16-year-old Bree Matthews, who attempts to infiltrate a historically white magical society to get help hunting the demons that are terrorizing the participants at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill pre-college summer program she is attending.


Tracy Deonn was inspired by "The Dark is Rising" series by Susan Cooper. She was also influenced by the death of her mother. Having worked in video games, she took that knowledge to help develop the stringent rules that guide the magical system described in the book.


"Legendborn" received positive critical reception. "Publisher's Weekly" stated, "Though hazy exposition initially slows the narrative, Deonn adeptly employs the haunting history of the American South [...] to explore themes of ancestral pain, grief, and love, balancing them with stimulating worldbuilding and multiple thrilling plot twists." In a starred review Bookpage stated, "Legendborn establishes Deonn as an important new voice in YA. Its gorgeous prose and heart-splitting honesty compel an eyes-wide-open reading experience."


Syfy.com called the book "a refreshing twist on classic Arthurian legend with a lot of Southern Black girl magic to boot". Natalie Berglind wrote in a review for the "Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books", "Deonn brings Arthurian legend to life with originality, a dash of heart-pounding demon-slaying, and a deep and meaningful acknowledgement of the violent roots of slavery in U.S. history." "Kirkus Reviews" noted "Representation of actualized, strong queer characters is organic, not forced, and so are textual conversations around emotional wellness and intergenerational trauma [...] Well-crafted allusions to established legends and other literary works are delightful easter eggs."


The Harlem Detective series of novels by Chester Himes comprises nine hardboiled novels set in the 1950s and early 1960s:


Their protagonists are two black NYPD detectives (whose origins can be traced to a short story Himes published (1933) in "Abbott's Monthly Magazine") — Grave Digger Jones and Coffin Ed Johnson — whose names suggest the nature of their police methods and reputation. Jones and Johnson generally go easy with, and even tolerate, numbers operators, madames, whores, and gamblers; but they are extremely hostile to violent criminals, drug dealers, confidence tricksters and pimps. Himes says that they are tough, "but they never came down hard on anybody that was in the right".


Himes's two Harlem detectives are mythic heroes of sorts—indomitable forces of nature, their status as heavy-handed enforcers for the Man elevated to Harlem legends. So pervasive is the legend that their presence isn't needed to inspire awe or fear, mention of their name is enough. They are the law, the Man, the "mens", also a law onto themselves, using extralegal means to induce compliance.


The "extralegal means" frequently include physical brutality in the case of men suspected of violent crime, and psychological torture and intimidation with women who withhold information, such as when Grave Digger threatens to pistol-whip a woman "until no man will ever look at you again" ("A Rage in Harlem"), or strips another woman naked, tying her up, and making a hairline incision across her neck with a razor, then forcing her to look at the blood in a mirror.


Himes attempts to portray this brutality in such a way that the reader does not wholly lose sympathy with the detectives. For example, in the throat-cutting incident, the woman was a key witness in a case where a young girl was being held hostage and threatened with death by a street gang, and Himes says of Grave Digger's actions: "He knew what he had done was unforgivable, but he couldn't stand any more lies". Jones and Johnson get away with these methods because they manage to solve high-profile cases under great pressure and because the victims of their brutality always either get killed off by other criminals, or are found to be implicated in serious crimes themselves.


Notwithstanding the above, Grave Digger and Coffin Ed have deep and genuine sympathy for the innocent victims of crime. They frequently intervene to protect their black brothers and sisters from the random and truly pointless brutality of the white cops (as portrayed by Himes). Finally, the detectives seem sympathetic because they are under constant pressure to prove themselves, as the only black detectives in a precinct where the other cops are openly racist; and the flip side of their brutality is their willingness to put their own reputations and their own lives on the line whenever the interests of justice require it.


There is abundant, and very effective, use of "black" (i.e., macabre) humor to lighten the mood of the stories, and they also contain many interesting sidelights touching on subjects as diverse as political corruption, jazz, soul food, and the sexual underside of Harlem life in that era.


Three films have been made based on the characters of Coffin Ed and Grave Digger: "Cotton Comes to Harlem" (1970), "Come Back, Charleston Blue" (1972) and "A Rage in Harlem" (1991).


A Small Place is a work of creative nonfiction published in 1988 by Jamaica Kincaid. A book-length essay drawing on Kincaid's experiences growing up in Antigua, it can be read as an indictment of the Antiguan government, the tourist industry and Antigua's British colonial legacy.


The book, written in four sections, "combines social and cultural critique with autobiography and a history of imperialism to offer a powerful portrait of (post)colonial Antigua."


In 1493, Christopher Columbus became the first European to visit Antigua on his second voyage. He named it Antigua after the Santa Maria de la Antigua, an icon found in Seville's cathedral. Sir Thomas Warner from England was able to colonize the island in 1632 by starting plantations that included tobacco and sugarcane. Warner also introduced slavery to the island. Slaves from West Africa worked on these plantations. Antigua became known as the English Harbourtown for its great location in the Caribbean. In 1834 slavery was finally abolished, but blacks' economic conditions failed to improve due to “land shortages and the universal refusal of credit”.


In her work, Jamaica Kincaid presents an anti-imperialist dialogue which is particularly critical of tourism and government corruption, both of which became prevalent after independence. She criticizes Antigua's dependence on tourism for its economy. Kincaid also mentions the damage caused by the 1974 earthquake, which destroyed many buildings. The author also explains how many people in office were charged with all forms of corruption. This social critique led to it being described as "an enraged essay about racism and corruption in Antigua" by one reviewer.


In the first section of "A Small Place", Kincaid employs the perspective of the tourist in order to demonstrate the inherent escapism in creating a distance from the realities of a visited place. Nadine Dolby dissects the theme of tourism in "A Small Place" and places Kincaid's depiction of tourism in a globalized context that justifies Kincaid's strong feelings toward it. Dolby corroborates Kincaid's depiction of the tourist creating separation by "othering" the locale and the individuals that inhabit it. Furthermore, the tourist industry is linked to a global economic system that ultimately does not translate into benefits for the very Antiguans who enable it.


The tourist may experience the beauty on the surface of Antigua while being wholly ignorant of the actual political and social conditions that the Antiguan tourism industry epitomizes and reinforces. Corinna Mcleod points out the disenfranchising nature of the tourism industry in its reinforcement of an exploitative power structure. In effect, the industry recolonizes Antigua by placing locals at a disenfranchised and subservient position in a global economic system that ultimately does not serve them.


While Kincaid expresses anger towards slavery, colonialism and the broken Antiguan identity that it has left in its wake, she avoids retreating to simple racialization in order to explain the past and present, for doing so would further "other" an already marginalized group of people. Kincaid sheds light on the oppressive hierarchical structures of colonialism, which is still evident in the learned power structures of present-day, post-colonial Antigua.


While she indeed acknowledges the justifications of oppression based on race in England's colonization of Antigua, she also attempts to transcend the notions of an inescapable racialized past. In doing so she attempts to shape readers’ view of Antigua by creating a sense of agency.


In 1988, "A Small Place" was criticized as a vitriolic attack on the government and people of Antigua. "New Yorker" editor Robert Gottlieb refused to publish it. According to "Jamaica Kincaid: Writing Memory, Writing Back to the Mother" she was not only banned unofficially for five years from her home country but she voiced concerns that had she gone back in that time, she worried she would be killed.


Jane King, in "A Small Place Writes Back", declared that "Kincaid does not like the Caribbean very much, finds it dull and boring and would rather live in Vermont. There can really be no difficulty with that, but I do not see why Caribbean people should admire her for denigrating our small place in this destructively angry fashion." Moira Ferguson, a feminist academic, argued that as "an African-Caribbean writer Kincaid speaks to and from the position of the other. Her characters are often maligned by history and subjected to a foreign culture, while Kincaid herself has become an increasingly mainstream American writer”


Parable of the Sower is a 1993 science fiction novel by American writer Octavia E. Butler, the first in a two-book series. It is an apocalypse science fiction novel that provides commentary on climate change and social inequality. It is the first of a series of two books. The novel follows Lauren Olamina in her quest for freedom. Several characters from various walks of life join her on her journey north and learn of a religion she has crafted titled Earthseed. In this religion, the destiny for believers is to inhabit other planets. "Parable of the Sower" was the winner of two awards and adapted into a concert and a graphic novel. "Parable of the Sower" has influenced music and essays on social justice.


Beginning in 2024, when society in the United States has grown unstable due to climate change, growing wealth inequality, and corporate greed, "Parable of the Sower" takes the form of a journal kept by Lauren Oya Olamina, an African American teenager. Her mother abused drugs during her pregnancy and left Lauren with "hyper-empathy" or "sharing" – the uncontrollable ability to feel the sensations she witnesses in others, particularly pain.


Lauren's youngest brother, Keith, rebelliously runs away to live outside the walls of the community. For a time, he survives by joining a group of ruthless thieves who value him for his rare literacy, but he is eventually found dead after torture. Later, Lauren's father disappears while leaving the community for work, and is accepted as dead.


When Lauren is eighteen in 2027, the community's security is breached in an organized attack by outsiders: most of the community is destroyed, looted, and murdered, including Lauren's family. She travels north, disguised as a man, with Henry and Zahra, two survivors from her community. Society outside the community walls has reverted to chaos due to resource scarcity and poverty. U.S. states have become akin to city-states, with strict borders. Money still has value, but travellers constantly fear attacks for resources or by pyromaniac drug-users, cannibals, and wild dogs. Mixed-race relationships are stigmatized and women constantly fear sexual assault. Slavery has returned in the form of indebted servitude.


Lauren gathers people to protect along her journey and begins to share the Earthseed religion, which is developing into a collection of texts titled "Earthseed: The Books of the Living". She believes that humankind's destiny is to travel beyond Earth and live on other planets, forcing humankind into its adulthood, and that Earthseed is preparation for this destiny. Lauren begins a relationship with Bankole, an older doctor who joins the group, and agrees to marry him. Bankole leads the group to the land he owns in Northern California, where the group settles and Lauren founds the first Earthseed community, Acorn.


Published by Four Walls Eight Windows in 1993, by Women's Press Ltd. in 1995, by Warner in 1995 and 2000, and by Seven Stories Press in 2017.


"Parable of the Sower" was adapted as "Parable of the Sower: The Concert Version", a work-in-progress opera written by American folk/blues musician Toshi Reagon in collaboration with her mother, singer and composer Bernice Johnson Reagon. The adaptation's libretto and musical score combine African-American spirituals, soul, rock and roll, and folk music into rounds to be performed by singers sitting in a circle. It was performed as part of The Public Theater's Under the Radar Festival in New York City in 2015 and in 2018.


In 2020 it was adapted by Damian Duffy and John Jennings, the team which had previously adapted Butler's novel "Kindred", and published by Abrams ComicArts. The graphic novel was named to the Black Lives Matter Reading Lists compiled by the Graphic Novels & Comics Round Table and the Black Caucus of the American Library Association.


The work of hip hop/R&B duo THEESatisfaction was influenced by Octavia Butler. The third track from their 2012 album "awE NaturalE", "Earthseed", contains themes from the "Parable" series: "Change there are few words / That you can say / We all watch things morphing everyday."


In 2015, Adrienne Maree Brown and Walidah Imarisha co-edited "Octavia's Brood: Science Fiction Stories from Social Justice Movements", a collection of 20 short stories and essays about social justice inspired by Butler. In 2020, adrienne maree brown and Toshi Reagon began collaborating on a podcast called Octavia's Parables.


The Good House is a horror novel by American writer Tananarive Due, first published in 2003 by Atria Books. The story follows Angela Toussaint as she returns to her late grandmother's home in Sacajawea, Washington.


Possessing the Secret of Joy is a 1992 novel by Alice Walker.


The novel explores what it means to have one's gender culturally defined and emphasizes that, according to Walker, "Torture is not culture."


Tashi "Evelyn" Johnson- The main protagonist of the novel. She is haunted by her experiences as a child and on the run from her memories, especially the act of female circumcision that she underwent as a young adult rather than a young child like other children following the tradition of her village. The novel delves into her struggles recuperating emotionally and physically from the circumcision as she is enveloped in revelations about the underlying meaning of her culture. Once she has the procedure done things go downhill pretty quickly and Tashi goes mad.


Adam Johnson- The son of Celie from The Color Purple, he is Tashi's lovingly supportive husband. Adam watches Tashi's downward spiral into darkness with the miserable frustration of being incapable of helping her. His intensely powerful insecurity and fear causes him to indulge in a merely comforting affair with his longtime friend, the French feminist, Lissete. As a result of their extramarital union, their son, Pierre is born. Adam is heartbroken as his affair pushes Tashi further away, and must face the consequences of his actions.


Benny Johnson- Tashi and Adam's adult son; Benny has an intellectual disability as a result of his brain being damaged during his birth, which was complicated because of Tashi's infibulation. Benny's limited abilities make Tashi increasingly depressed because she blames her circumcised vulva for Benny's agonizing journey from her womb. Benny is very curious about the world and is willing to study about it in order to keep up conversations with his parents.


Lisette- Adam's lover and mother of Pierre, Adam's second son.


Dura- Tashi's older sister that bled to death in childhood due to the ritual circumcision. Tashi comes to view Dura's death as a murder, and repeatedly emphasizes that Dura has been "screaming in her ears" since her death.


M'Lissa- "Tsunga" of the tribe into which M'Lissa was born. The "tsunga" performs circumcisions (e.g. excision and infibulation) on the girls of the tribe. M'Lissa performed the circumcision on Dura that caused her to bleed to death.


Carl Gustav Jung- Jung appears as the therapist of Tashi, the novel's protagonist. He is usually called "Mzee" but is identified by Alice Walker in the afterword.


The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man (1912/1927) by James Weldon Johnson is the fictional account of a young biracial man, referred to only as the "Ex-Colored Man," living in post-Reconstruction era America in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. He lives through a variety of experiences, including witnessing a lynching, that convince him to "pass" as white to secure his safety and advancement, but he feels as if he has given up his dream of "glorifying" the black race by composing ragtime music.


Johnson originally published "The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man" anonymously in 1912, via the small Boston publisher Sherman, French, & Company. He decided to publish it anonymously because he was uncertain how the potentially controversial book would affect his diplomatic career. He wrote openly about issues of race and discrimination that were not common then in literature. The book's initial public reception was poor. It was republished in 1927, with some minor changes of phraseology, by Alfred A. Knopf, an influential firm that published many Harlem Renaissance writers, and Johnson was credited as the author.


Despite the title, the book is a novel. It is drawn from the lives of people Johnson knew and from events in his life. Johnson's text is an example of a roman à clef.


The novel begins with a frame tale in which the unnamed narrator describes the narrative that follows as "the great secret of my life." The narrator notes that he is taking a substantial risk by composing the narrative, but that it is one he feels compelled to record, regardless. The narrator also chooses to withhold the name of the small Georgia town where his narrative begins, as there are still living residents of the town who might be able to connect him to the narrative.


Throughout the novel, the adult narrator from the frame interjects into the text to offer reflective commentary into the events of the narrative.


Born shortly after the Civil War in a small Georgia town, the narrator's African-American mother protected him as a child and teenager. The narrator's father, a wealthy white member of the Southern aristocracy, is absent throughout the narrator's childhood but, nevertheless, continues to provide financial support for the narrator and his mother. Because of that financial support, she had the means to raise her son in an environment more middle-class than many black people could enjoy at the time.


While in school, the narrator also grows to admire and befriends "Shiny," an unmistakably African-American boy, who is described as one of the brightest and best-spoken children in the class.


After the narrator's mother dies, he becomes a poor orphan and subject to harsh conditions.


He adapted very well to life with lower-class black people and was able to move easily among the classes of black society. During this carefree period, he taught music and attended church, where he came in contact with upper-class black people. Living in an all black community, he discovers and describes three classes of black people: the desperate, the domestics, and the independent workmen or professionals.


The Ex-Colored Man believed the desperate class consists of lower-class black people who loathe the whites. The domestic worker class comprises black people who work as servants to whites. And the artisans, skilled workers, and black professionals class included black people who had little interaction with the whites. Many white readers, who viewed all black people as a stereotype of a single class, were unfamiliar with class distinctions described among black people.


While playing ragtime at a late night hot spot in New York, the Ex-Colored Man caught the attention of a wealthy white gentleman. The gentleman's liking for ragtime develops as liking for the Ex-Colored Man himself. The white gentleman hired him to play ragtime piano for guests at parties. Soon the Ex-Colored Man spent most of his time working for the white gentleman, who paid him to play ragtime music for hours at a time. He would play until the white gentleman would say "that will do." The Ex-Colored man would tire after the long hours but would continue playing as he saw the joy and serenity he brought the white gentleman.


The Ex-Colored Man's devotion to the white gentleman expresses the relationship that some slaves had with their masters (slaves who showed devotion to the slave-owner). Johnson suggests that, although the Ex-Colored Man had "freedom," he was still suffering from the effects of slavery. After playing for the white gentleman while touring Europe, the Ex-Colored Man decided to leave him and return to the South to study Negro spirituals. He planned to use his knowledge of classical and ragtime music to create a new Black American musical genre. He wanted to "bring glory and honor to the Negro race," to return to his heritage, and proud and self-righteous race.


Many critics have suspected that the Rich White Gentleman may not be white but is passing, as well. His love for ragtime music and his conviction that the Ex-Colored Man not embrace his blackness to pursue a career as a definitively black composer could be used to argue that he experienced inner turmoil with his racial identity similar to that experienced by the Ex-Colored Man.


Many critics believe that Johnson wrote this scene to heighten awareness of and opposition to lynchings. The turn of the century was the peak of lynchings conducted against blacks, mostly in the South, in the period when southern states disfranchised blacks through new constitutions and practices such as poll taxes, literacy tests, grandfather clauses and white primaries. Michael Berube writes, "there is no question that Johnson wrote the book, in large part, to try to stem the tide of lynchings sweeping the nation."


After the lynching, the Ex-Colored Man decides to "pass" as white. He gives up his dream of making music to glorify his race and thinks he does not want to be "identified with people that could with impunity be treated worse than animals," or with people who could treat other humans that way. He simply wishes to remain neutral. The Ex-Colored Man declares that he "would neither disclaim the black race nor claim the white race."


The world accepted the Ex-Colored Man as white. Our narrator has been "passing" as a white man for the remainder of his life, and titles his autobiographical narrative "Ex-Colored Man." At the same time, the narrator learns that his childhood friend, "Shiny," is now teaching as a professor at a Negro college, suggesting a contrast between himself, who has chosen to pass, and Shiny, who has embraced his African-American heritage.


The narrator eventually begins a courtship with a white woman, causing an internal dilemma as to whether or not to reveal his African-American heritage, and he asks her to marry him. After the two have a chance meeting with Shiny, in which the narrator is "surprised at the amount of interest a refined black man could arouse," the narrator decides to reveal his secret to her. At first shocked, she flees, and the narrator resolves to give her sufficient space to let her make up her mind. Eventually, she returns to him, having absorbed his revelation and chosen to accept him. They are eventually married and have two children, and the narrator lives out his life as a successful yet mediocre businessman.


His wife dies during the birth of their second child, leaving the narrator alone to raise their two children. At the end of the book, the Ex-colored Man says:


My love for my children makes me glad that I am what I am, and keeps me from desiring to be otherwise; and yet, when I sometimes open a little box in which I still keep my fast yellowing manuscripts, the only tangible remnants of a vanished dream, a dead ambition, a sacrificed talent, I cannot repress the thought, that after all, I have chosen the lesser part, that I have sold my birthright for a mess of pottage.


"Passing" could be interpreted as a decision to avoid the black race. He states that he "regrets holding himself back." He may have been implying that if he had, he embraced the Negro community and let the community embrace him, that he could have made a difference.


A major shift in the plot occurs during a performance of "Faust" in Paris, when the narrator sees his wealthy white father and his legitimate family, including his biological half-sister. Throughout the novel, the narrator is locked in a continual cycle of bargaining. The final bargain is trading his aspirations and talents for mediocrity to "pass" and allow his children to pass, raising the question as to whether this is damnation or continual striving.


A Mercy is Toni Morrison's ninth novel. It was published in 2008. "A Mercy" reveals what lies beneath the surface of slavery in early America. It is both the story of mothers and daughters and the story of a primitive America. It made the "New York Times Book Review" list of "10 Best Books of 2008" as chosen by the paper's editors. In Fall 2010 it was chosen for the One Book, One Chicago program.


All these characters are bereft of their roots, struggling to survive in a new and alien environment filled with danger and disease. When smallpox threatens Rebekka's life, Florens, now 16, is sent to find a black freedman who has some knowledge of herbal medicines. Her journey is dangerous, ultimately proving to be the turning point in her life.


Morrison examines the roots of racism going back to slavery's earliest days, providing glimpses of the various religious practices of the time, and showing the relationship between men and women in early America that often ended in female victimization. They are "of and for men", people who "never shape the world, The world shapes us". As the women journey toward self-enlightenment, Morrison often describes their progress in Biblical cadences, and by the end of this novel, the reader understands the significance of the title, "a mercy".


Silver Sparrow is the third novel by the American author Tayari Jones, which was first published in 2011. The novel follows the complicated relationship between two families, joined together by a bigamist father. Jones was inspired to write the book by her own relationship with her sisters who were over a decade older than her and who she felt lived very different lives than her own. In 2019, the writer and actress Issa Rae announced plans to adapt the novel into a film.


Dana Lynn Yarboro's parents meet in Atlanta, Georgia when her father is buying an anniversary present for his wife. Her mother, a young divorcée named Gwen Yarboro, becomes James Witherspoon's mistress. Dana is born shortly before the birth of James's daughter Chaurisse, from his marriage to his wife Laverne. After Chaurisse's birth, Gwen pressures James to illegally marry her which he consents to though he does not leave Laverne.


Dana grows up with the knowledge that her father is married to another woman and has another daughter. Dana and her mother are kept secret, however the only individual from James's other life that is aware of the situation is his childhood friend and adopted brother, Raleigh. Dana is prevented from participating in certain jobs and going to certain schools in order to protect Chaurisse, however while attending a high school science competition she runs into Chaurisse who she notices is wearing the exact same fur jacket as her, both presents given to them by their father, James.


While still a teenager, Dana becomes involved with a young adult man, Marcus McCready, and while her father is displeased he does nothing to stop her as he knows McCready from his married life.


In her final year of high school Dana is introduced to her paternal grandmother, Bunny Witherspoon, as she is dying. Her grandmother bequeaths her her favourite brooch as a parting gift.


Bunny Chaurisse Witherspoon grows up the protected and beloved daughter of James Witherspoon and Laverne Witherspoon. Her parents met at the age of 14 when her mother lost her virginity to her father and subsequently became pregnant and was forced to marry James and leave school. Their son was a stillborn but Laverne remained with the Witherspoons. They managed to claw their way to being middle-class business owners with James and his brother Raleigh running a chauffeur business and Laverne running a beauty salon out of their garage.


While out shopping Chaurisse meets a young girl and saves both of them from being caught shoplifting. The girl is named Dana, and Chaurisse grows infatuated with her believing she is a "silver" girl who is beautiful and leads a charmed life. The two become friends with the shy Dana eventually meeting and befriending Laverne as well.


Some fifteen years later Dana has a daughter. Though, she does not marry her daughter's father he publicly claims his daughter as his own which Dana considers progress. She is visited by Chaurisse who asks Dana if James continued to see her and her mother after reconciling with Laverne. Dana reveals that after reuniting with Laverne she only saw James briefly at his vow renewal to Laverne. At this point, James told her she had finally achieved what she wanted: recognition of her paternity at the cost of her private relationship with him. She understands that nevertheless Laverne and Chaurisse have never been able to believe that they have won.


"The Washington Post" described Jones's writing as "realistic and sparkling". "The Chicago Tribune" praised the novel as "an exciting read all the way through." However, "Publishers Weekly" criticized the novel as "growing increasingly histrionic and less believable" as it went on.


"A Funeral at New African" details the death and the aftermath of Sarah's father, Reverend Phillips. Sarah's major reflection around this time in her and her family's life is how her father, and his death, started to belong to everyone else but the immediate family.


Education—Sarah's education primes her to attend Harvard, live in Paris, meet European lovers, and escape the confines of her religious middle-class home life. She simultaneously seeks her parents' utter disapproval, and their unconditional worship. Boarding school, then the elite university provide her with the opportunity to escape their grasp and explore the world. This opportunity exposes the often condescending or ignorant attitudes of Sarah's peers. It gives a window into a world in which people who looked like Sarah did not, historically, have a place. This opportunity also exposes some of Sarah's privilege, and naivety.


Privilege—Sarah is a black student at an all-white boarding school. In one scene, after an audition she feels is strong, Sarah is cast as the black housemaid in the school play. It is clear to her, in that moment, how her appearance shapes some outcomes more than her talent, determination, or character. Still, Sarah has privileges many black Americans do not have at the time Lee wrote the novel. She belongs to a stable, prosperous family that educates and loves her. She receives the opportunity to improve her own future when she is invited to boarding school. Navigating the intersections of these identities thus becomes part of Sarah's coming-of-age process.


Coming of age—Although she deals with the added complications of being black in a predominantly white space, and being minimally religious in a devout household, Sarah struggles to find her identity throughout her adolescence and young adulthood like any other character. She navigates these by developing a heightened self-awareness—of her positionality in different spaces, as well as of her own strengths, weaknesses, feelings, and tendencies.


Intersections of race and class: Sarah sometimes struggles to be seen as an equal among her white peers. At the same time, she sometimes exhibits similarly exclusive tendencies. For example, she initially ignores the black cook at school, thinking she is too good for him. Her church communities demonstrates some of the same class tensions. Many well-off black families drive into South Philly to go to Sunday morning services. But then they drive expensive cars back out to the suburbs, while poorer black families are left to live in the "inner-city". She lives in an "earnest, prosperous black family in which Civil Rights and concern for the underprivileged are served up".


Family approval—Sarah reminisces on her friendship with Curry, the son, also studying at Harvard, of her mom's distant cousin and childhood best friend. She says they "both harbored ill-conceived ideals of leading lives that would almost geometrically contravene anything of which our parents would approve".


Intimacy—Sarah finds intimacy challenging in a number of the stories contained in "Sarah Phillips". She sometimes struggles to identify the lines between friendship and romance (with Curry Daniels), or the difference between passionate romance and abusive relationship behavior.


While Andrea Lee's first novel, "Russian Journal", was nominated for a National Book Award for Nonfiction, "Sarah Phillips" received no awards. It has, however, become the topic of academic literature, journal articles, and much classroom conversation. Both the popular reception to the novel and academic opinions vary widely. Some examples are included below:


In a November 1984 review in "The New York Times", novelist Susan Richards Shreve described "Sarah Phillips" as an "unsentimental autobiography". She continued, it "is clear that Miss Lee intended her to be a child of the civil rights movement, representative of a new black woman, educated, sassy, worldly, harshly critical, somewhat self- deprecating and bound for a kind of glory".


Invoking the philosophies of W.E.B. DuBois and William Faulkner, Don N. Enomoto argued, in a 1999 Journal article published by MELUS, "Sarah Phillips" is ideal material for exploring the tensions between "theory and tradition". He wrote that Sarah Phillips, the character, fights "to liberate herself from restrictive conditions while constructing a new identity that better reflects her own subjective experience of reality".


In March, 1985, a student writer for "The Harvard Crimson" said "Sarah Phillips" is "really a collection of finely shaped autobiographical short stories".


Adrienne McCormick, Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at Winthrop University, said in a 2004 essay published by the Johns Hopkins University Press that "Sarah Phillips" "raises questions about the middle class black woman's ability to recognize, let alone resist, racism and sexism as they intersect with class privilege".


In a January 1985 "Los Angeles Times" review, Lola D. Gillebaard said "Sarah is not consciously clashing with issues of history in these chapters, but author Lee has clearly made her a child of the educated, cheeky, cosmopolitan, critical and bound for achievement".


This variety in response to, and interpretation of, "Sarah Phillips", is part of what Valerie Smith discusses in her introduction to the novel, as mentioned earlier.


Devil in a Blue Dress is a 1990 hardboiled mystery novel by Walter Mosley, his first published book.


The text centers on the main character, Ezekiel "Easy" Rawlins, and his transformation from a day laborer into a detective.


Set in 1948, the story begins in the Watts area of Los Angeles, with Ezekiel "Easy" Rawlins, a Houstonian — from that city's Fifth Ward — who lost his job at an aviation defense plant in Los Angeles and is unable to pay the mortgage on his LA home. Easy is sitting in a bar run by Joppy, a friend who is also from Houston, when a man named DeWitt Albright walks into the bar and offers him a job finding a young white woman named Daphne Monet, who is rumored to be hanging out in bars frequented mostly by African Americans, although white women are allowed inside.


At the bar, Easy meets two old friends, Coretta and Dupree, among many other people that he knew from his former life in Houston. Coretta says that she knows Daphne, but gives an incorrect address to Easy. He goes home with them and has sex with Coretta, while Dupree is asleep in the next room. Easy then leaves her early the next morning, only to be arrested by the LAPD. Shortly thereafter, following police interrogation, Easy is told that Coretta is dead, and that he is a suspect in her murder.


When Easy finally does find Monet, he figures out that she has stolen a large amount of money from a man named Todd Carter, who is a local wealthy businessman. Albright wanted this money for himself. Eventually, Albright finds Monet through Easy, who is trying to shield the thieving woman.


Easy enlists the help of a friend and fellow Houstonian, Mouse, who shows up due to a half-hearted invitation from Easy, and domestic strife back home. Easy and Mouse find Monet with Albright and Joppy. They rescue her, and kill Joppy and Albright. Then Mouse reveals that Monet is actually Ruby, an African-American woman passing as white, and the sister of a local gangster named Green. Mouse and Easy blackmail Ruby, taking her money and dividing it into thirds for each of them. Daphne/Ruby leaves shortly thereafter, and Easy has to clean up the mess with the police, as well as Carter, who had initially hired Albright to find her, since he really did love her and not his money.


Easy approaches Carter and requests his help with the police. He blackmails him by saying that he will leak the information about his love for a black woman unless he is protected from the law. Carter helps him. At the conclusion, Mouse returns to Houston, Easy takes up detective work, and Ruby disappears.


The novel is an important contribution to African-American and ethnic detective fiction in that it focuses on a black protagonist who falls into the role of detective, but by the series' end, has made his own both the profession and the identity that often comes along with it. Particularly noteworthy are Easy's use of African-American English and the emergence of "the Voice" (an inner voice that advises Easy during particularly stressful or dangerous situations). Literary scholars of ethnic detective fiction have explored the qualities in conjunction with approaches in genre study and gender identity approaches.


First published by W.W. Norton in 1990, "Devil In a Blue Dress" won the 1991 Shamus Award in the category of "Best First P. I. Novel".


"Devil In a Blue Dress" was adapted into a 1995 film of the same name, which starred Denzel Washington as Easy Rawlins, and also featured Jennifer Beals, Tom Sizemore, Maury Chaykin, as well as Don Cheadle as the unhinged 'Mouse'.


In 1996, a 10-part abridgement by Margaret Busby, read by Paul Winfield, was broadcast on BBC Radio 4, starting on April 1.


Push is the debut novel of American author Sapphire. Thirteen years after its release in 1996, the novel was made into the 2009 film "Precious", which won numerous accolades, including two Academy Awards.


Critics have gone in both directions as far as their opinions of the style in which "Push" is written. Some consider "the harrowing story line [to be] exaggerated," saying that it doesn't seem realistic to "saddle one fictional character with so many problems straight from today's headlines" (Glenn). Others have stated that while the dialect is problematic, Precious herself is believable because she "speaks in a darting stream of consciousness of her days in an unexpectedly evocative fashion" (Mahoney).


Precious begins the novel functionally illiterate. She spells words phonetically. She uses a "minimal English that defies the conventions of spelling and usage and dispenses all verbal decorum" (Mahoney). She employs variations such as "nuffin'" for "nothing", "git" for "get", "borned" for "born", "wif" for "with", and "chile" for "child". She also uses an array of profanity and harsh details that reflect the life she has experienced. Michiko Kakutani, a book reviewer for "The New York Times", states that Precious' "voice conjures up [her] gritty unforgiving world."


As the book progresses and Precious learns to read and write, there is a stark change in her voice, though the dialect remains the same.


In 2011, Sapphire published a semi-sequel, "The Kid". It follows the life of Precious' son Abdul from the age of nine to 19. Precious herself has died following complications from HIV, but was accepted to college before her death.


All American Boys, published in 2015 by Atheneum, is a young adult novel written by Jason Reynolds and Brendan Kiely. The book tells the story of two teenage boys, Rashad Butler and Quinn Collins, as they handle racism and police brutality in their communityThe novel has gained attention in recent years due, becoming the third most banned book of 2020, due to its inclusion of anti-police messages, alcohol, drug usage and profanity.


Jason Reynolds and Brendan Kiely met on a Simon & Schuster book tour in 2013. While sharing a room on the book tour, they heard the news that George Zimmerman had been acquitted of the murder of Trayvon Martin. Reynolds and Kiely began to share their feelings and frustrations, developing a friendship. After Michael Brown was shot and killed in Ferguson on August 9, 2014, Reynolds and Kiely began writing All American Boys as a way to address police brutality and racial profiling. The book was published in 2015 by Simon & Schuster.


The book follows two characters, Rashad Butler and Quinn, as they navigate racism. The novel switches between the perspective of a black boy, Rashad, written by Jason Reynolds, and a white boy, Quinn, written by Brendan Kiely.Rashad is a 16-year-old who is assaulted by a white police officer in a convenience store. Quinn is a witness to the incident.


"All American Boys" won the inaugural Walter Dean Myers Award from the We Need Diverse Books organization inn 2016 and the Coretta Scott King Award. In 2016, the novel won the Amelia Elizabeth Walden Award for Young Adult Fiction.


In 2020, "All American Boys" landed the third position on the American Library Association's list of the most commonly banned and challenged books in the United States. The book was banned, challenged, and/or restricted "for profanity, drug use, and alcoholism, and because it was thought to promote anti-police views, contain divisive topics, and be 'too much of a sensitive matter right now.'"


Two parents, one of whom a police officer with children at Bailey Middle School in Cornelius, North Carolina, challenged All American Boys. Police officers, faculty members and community members were all involved in the review process, with the school inviting officers to attend classes in which the novel was taught. After the review process, Board members decided in September 2019 to keep the book as a part of the eighth-grade curriculum. Board members and leaders stated that the novel has the ability to open student’s’ minds to social justice issues and contemporary issues they face.


A Business Career is a novel by African-American author Charles Chesnutt that features the life of a "new woman" of the late 19th century; she enters the world of business instead of embracing the traditional roles of women. It explores a failed romance between two successful upper-class members. A family’s vendetta against the man who allegedly destroyed the family's fortune is revealed to be mistaken. The novel was unusual for its time as Chesnutt wrote only about white society.


The book was completed in 1890 but Chesnutt, who had published only a few short stories by then, was unable to interest a publisher in it. The book's depiction of white society may have contributed to that failure. Editor Walter Hines Page, who declined the book, nevertheless encouraged Chesnutt in his writing and later published other works by him.


Since the late 20th century, there has been a revival of interest in Chesnutt. This novel was published posthumously in 2005 with an introduction and editing by Matthew Wilson.


The story takes place in 1890s in the Midwest city of Groveland (critics consider this a fictional stand-in for Cleveland, where Chesnutt lived). At the Truscott Refining Company, the male stenographer has just been fired. Stella Merwin fills in temporarily; she has already learned shorthand. When an opportunity opens up, she stays in the job longer than intended. The company is owned by the man whom her family believes has destroyed its reputation and honor.


The Truscott Refining Company is at the brink of collapse because the company needs $200,000 that it owes to its creditors. Luckily Matilda Wedderburn comes to Truscott’s rescue, even though he put their romance to an end, by offering her good friend the money that he desperately needs therefore saving the company.


Stella moves back to Cloverdale leaving Groveland in her rear-view mirror because she wants to forget about her experience working for Wendell Truscott as much as possible. She soon receives a letter from Truscott asking her to come back to work because he cannot find anyone who did as good a job as she did, but more importantly he wants her to come back because she loves him. In the letter Truscott says, "Come back to me, dear child, or let me come to you, and we will part no more forever, as long as we both shall live."


Stella Merwin (Miss Smith): The protagonist of the novel is a "new woman" of the late 19th century who pursues a life outside the traditional roles of wife and mother. As a junior in college, she learns shorthand, which enables her to secure a job as a stenographer. She works for The Truscott Refining Company with the objective of trying to find documents to restore her family’s wealth.


Wendell Truscott: The wealthy proprietor of the Truscott Refining Company whom the Merwin family blames for their financial ruin. He is a crafty businessman. It is revealed that he never betrayed his mentor Henry Merwin, but provided for his family.


Mrs. Paxton: Stella’s mentor who gets her the job at Truscott Refining. She guides Stella in the business world and becomes a friend.


Mr. Peters: The former stenographer, fired for tardiness due to excessive drinking.


Mr. Ross: The bookkeeper of Truscott Refining, who steals $20,000 from the company, but escapes to South America. Stella Merwin's judgment of him is proved true by events.


Matilda Wedderburn: A beautiful, wealthy woman being courted by Wendell Truscott. Her hopes of marrying him end when he "falls for" Stella Merwin. As a friend, she loans Truscott money to save the company.


Mrs. Merwin: The mother of Stella and George, and wife of Henry Merwin. The widow has trouble dealing with her decline in status and yearns to return to her high place in society