Lover Man (McNally Editions)

“A gem of Americana . . . These stories span the early decades of the 20th century and address with nuance the Black characters’ negotiations with youthful turmoil, sexual desire, and race in the U.S. . . . This deserves a place on the shelf of mid-century classics.” —Publishers Weekly (Starred Review) Stories of loners, outsiders, tricksters, addicts, jazzmen, and drifters in the Jim Crow South—a classic of 1950s Black fiction. Raw, fearless, ironic, the stories in Lover Man (1958) promised the birth of a new sensibility in American fiction. Inspired by the bebop he loved, and the philosophy he studied at the Sorbonne, Alston Anderson looked back at the North Carolina of his youth to capture the hidden lives of Black boys and men in the early 1940s. Fascinated by loners and outsiders—tricksters, addicts, jazzmen, drifters, “queers”—and by the spiritual cost exacted by the myths of white supremacy, Anderson assembled an original kind of story collection, whose themes troubled and bewildered many of his early readers. Although later championed by Langston Hughes and Henry Louis Gates. Jr., among others, this—his only collection—has remained out of print since the ’50s. In his afterword to this new edition, the literary historian Kinohi Nishikawa investigates Anderson’s pief but pilliant career, the controversy his work provoked, and the light it sheds on his era.
ASIN: 1946022543
VSKU: DBV.1946022543.G
Condition: Good
Author/Artist:Anderson, Alston
Binding: Paperback
Note: Any images shown are stock photographs and product may differ from what is shown.
Condition Notes: Gently used with minimal wear on the corners and cover. A few pages may contain light highlighting or writing, but the text remains fully legible. Dust jacket may be missing, and supplemental materials like CDs or codes may not be included. May be ex-library with library markings. Ships promptly!