I got hooked on mystery novels as a kid reading the Encyclopedia Brown stories. Something about the combination of a great story and a puzzle to solve is irresistible to me. As a historian, I’m interested in communities, and especially how people understood themselves as being part of the new kinds of economic, political, and cultural communities that emerged in the first half of the twentieth century. When I learned about Dorothy L. Sayers’ lifelong writing group, the wryly named ‘Mutual Admiration Society’, I was thrilled at the chance to combine my professional interests with my personal passion for detective fiction.
Rudolph Fisher was a contemporary of Sayers, but working in a very different context: the Harlem Renaissance.
This novel, reputed to be the first detective novel written by a Black American, opens with the mysterious, apparently impossible murder of a Harvard-educated fortune-teller, N’Gana Frimbo, the ‘conjure-man’ of the title. Then the body disappears, and Frimbo (apparently) reappears – throwing medical and police investigations into chaos.
There’s a surfeit of suspects and lots of talking; what I really love about this novel is the sense of being plunged into a vivid, fully-populated world. This book wins my vote for most overlooked mystery novel from the Golden Age.
I love books. I studied them at school, sold them in a store, and now I write them. Books about books are a favorite genre of mine because they explore the power of story-telling and the sharing of ideas. Indeed, from the King James Bible to Kapital toFifty Shades of Grey, books shape us and the world. This fascination inspired me to write two comic novels about books,The King of Pain, which contains a book-within-in-a-book, and most recently, The Seductive Lady Vanessa of Manhattanshire, a satirical romance inspired by Don Quixote.
Erasure’s book within a book set up targets publishing, contemporary society, and, without mentioning her name, Oprah Winfrey. The plot is terrific. An African American author who is told his work isn't “Black enough” knocks out a satirical retelling of Richard Wright’s Native Sonunder a pseudonym. The book “My Pafology” — which he retitles “Fuck” — is boosted by a TV personality and becomes a huge hit, its satirical elements lost on the world. Hilarity ensues. The novel echoes literary scams like James Frey’sMillion Little Pieces, but Everett, an under-recognized genius, roasts everyone.
Percival Everett's Erasure is a blistering satire about race and writing
Thelonious "Monk" Ellison's writing career has bottomed out: his latest manuscript has been rejected by seventeen publishers, which stings all the more because his previous novels have been "critically acclaimed." He seethes on the sidelines of the literary establishment as he watches the meteoric success of We's Lives in Da Ghetto, a first novel by a woman who once visited "some relatives in Harlem for a couple of days." Meanwhile, Monk struggles with real family tragedies—his aged mother is fast succumbing to Alzheimer's, and he still grapples with the…
I was born in the Bronx, New York. I arrived in Paris, France at the age of 32. Thought I would stay for one year. That was thirty years ago. I'm still in Paris, and the author of a memoir, a play, and seven novels. Many of my novels fit the term "social thriller," popularized by Jordan Peele to define his ground-smashing classic film Get Out. Peele identified a genre that has been with us, particularly when it comes to crime fiction, for a long time. I've always been fascinated by dark, suspenseful stories that explore the nature of greed, of racism, of political power. And how the three are so often wrapped around each other.
Only when I arrived in Paris did I discover the works of this major African American writer.
Back then, Himes—still under-recognized in the USA—was a long-time household name in France. Himes not only brought the American crime novel to the Black part of town, he did it with a satiric bite that is his distinguishing feature.
The Black police detectives Grave Digger Jones and Coffin Ed Johnson are at the center of the nine novels in Himes's Harlem Cycle, an epic achievement in crime fiction.
Himes's Harlem is a violent phantasmagoria where Digger and Ed—in order to protect the poor, ordinary working folk of the community—are forced to be the baddest of the bad.
Cotton Comes to Harlem is my favorite work in the collection. Published in 1965, it skewers both Black militants and white racists with wicked glee.
From “the best writer of mayhem yarns since Raymond Chandler” (San Francisco Chronicle) comes a hard-hitting, entertaining entry in the trailblazing Harlem Detectives series about two NYPD detectives who must piece together the clues of the scam of a lifetime.
Flim-flam man Deke O’Hara is no sooner out of Atlanta’s state penitentiary than he’s back on the streets working a big scam. As sponsor of the Back-to-Africa movement, he’s counting on a big Harlem rally to produce a massive collection—for his own private charity. But the take is hijacked by white gunmen and hidden in a bale of cotton that…
One of my favorite writers, Ralph Ellison, said art could "transform dismal sociological facts" through "tragi-comic transcendence." For me, finding humor in the horrific is a means of survival. It's a way of embracing life's tragedy and finding beauty. My two novels, Pickard County Atlas and Little Underworld, try to do that.
I’m pretty certain Invisible Man is The Great American Novel. Some lines make me laugh aloud: “I would remain and become a well-disciplined optimist and help them to go merrily to hell.” But the moments that really sing for me are those that ring with humor, horror, tragedy, and beauty all at once.
Near the end, during a moment when the nameless narrator hides and listens to some men telling a story, he aches with the urge to laugh while realizing what’s been said isn’t only funny: “It was funny and dangerous and sad.” The book reminds me that all of those things can be held in my head at once.
NATIONAL BOOK AWARD WINNER • NATIONAL BESTSELLER • In this deeply compelling novel and epic milestone of American literature, a nameless narrator tells his story from the basement lair of the Invisible Man he imagines himself to be.
He describes growing up in a Black community in the South, attending a Negro college from which he is expelled, moving to New York and becoming the chief spokesman of the Harlem branch of "the Brotherhood," before retreating amid violence and confusion.
Originally published in 1952 as the first novel by a then unknown author, it remained on the bestseller list for…
Mainly because it's a book set in 1920s Harlem, written by an African-American writer who lived there at the time; all the characters are African-American. The language is rich and lively, full of "Harlemisms." There is an intricate murder mystery and a wealth of unique characters.
While Dr. Archer and the conjure-man Frimbo have erudite discussions about science and philosophy, the repartee of prime suspect Jinx Jenkins and his friend Bubber Brown is informal and full of colloquialisms and jokes, even in serious situations.
I had never read a book like this before. It was interesting and entertaining.
I've been a horror fanatic since I was a little girl. At the age of 7, I was attempting to write my first horror novel, My Teacher is a Vampire, and at age of 9, I had already read my mom’s copy of, It. By the age of 16, I read the majority of Stephen King’s novels and was fascinated with Nosferatu, the original vampire, Vincent Price - the master of horror, and George Romero. When people ask why do I love the horror genre so much…my answer is: I’d rather read about the monsters in books and in movies instead of reading the newspaper or turning on the news and see the real monsters.
A lot of people don’t know that the movie Precious is based off of a novel. Sure... It doesn’t have any ghouls, monsters, descriptive sentences filled with gore and macabre, but if you were like me, and decided to read the book after watching the film…. This movie goes down as probably one of the scariest novels of all time…like V.C. Andrews Flowers in the Attic scary.It’s hard reading novels that involve the abuse of children, but this book literally had me speechless and horrified like the first time I watched an episode of, My 500 Pound Life.
A new 25th anniversary edition of the instant classic that inspired the major motion picture and Sundance Film Festival winner Precious: Based on the Novel by Sapphire, whose power and ferocity influenced a generation of writers.
Precious Jones, an illiterate sixteen-year-old, has up until now been invisible to the father who rapes her and the mother who batters her and to the authorities who dismiss her as just one more of Harlem's casualties. But when Precious, pregnant with a second child by her father, meets a determined and radical teacher, we follow her on a journey of education and enlightenment…
Crook Manifesto is
a follow-up to Whitehead’s Harlem Shuffle. This time, set in the 70s, we
return to the world of Ray Carney, now running a more successful and larger
furniture store right on 125th St, in Harlem. And again, Carney is a
cipher for Whitehead to explore the sights, sounds, and humanity of one of
America’s most fascinating, volatile neighborhoods.
Whitehead is at the top of his game here as he captures the styles and rhythms of
the city in all its glorious, bell-bottom 70s groove. Carney’s block of Harlem is a powder keg of crime
and racial tension, with the Black Panthers marching in the streets, corrupt
cops demanding pay for protection, and, of course, more petty crimes and con
artists.
The book is peppered with rich, funny, painful moments and broken lives.
He makes it look so damn easy as his language be-bops along and somehow…
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The two-time Pulitzer Prize winner and bestselling author of Harlem Shuffle continues his Harlem saga in a powerful and hugely-entertaining novel that summons 1970s New York in all its seedy glory.
“Dazzling” –Walter Mosley, The New York Times Book Review.
It’s 1971. Trash piles up on the streets, crime is at an all-time high, the city is careening towards bankruptcy, and a shooting war has broken out between the NYPD and the Black Liberation Army. Amidst this collective nervous breakdown furniture store owner and ex-fence Ray Carney tries to keep his head down and his…
I’ve been a Black woman for almost 40 years, and I’ve been writing about Black women almost as long. I grew up reading children’s books with brown faces and great stories, but the authors never interested me. Until I read Peaches, I had no idea that wholly relatable authors and stories existed. I began seeking them out. From authors like Virginia Hamilton and James Baldwin to Langston Hughes and even Donald Goines, I found stories of people with lives I recognized. I am far from an expert on Black literature. I am just grateful that during my formative years, I was exposed to some great Black authors.
Millicent Johnson (Peaches) has a whimsical imagination and dreams of becoming an artist.
Being raised by her grandmother along with her cousins in 1970s Harlem, their summers are filled with the freedom to wander the neighborhood and get into all sorts of trouble.
Yes, it’s a middle-grade book. I first read this book in seventh grade. I’ve no idea how many books I’d read up until that point but it was literally in the hundreds. This was the first book I’d read that I didn’t have to fully engage my whole imagination.
It realistically reflected my actual life… from the corner store to playing the numbers to even the boys she liked. I loved Peaches’ life. She was me. This is the book that began my writing life…for real.
We grew up in predominantly white communities and came of age during the Civil Rights and Black Power movements. As academics, we focused on issues of race in our research and teaching. Yet, despite our reading and writing about race, we still hadn’t made a connection to our own lives and how our white privilege shielded us and made us complicit in perpetuating racial inequities. We didn’t fully see our role in white supremacy until we adopted our sons. Becoming an interracial family and parenting Black sons taught us about white privilege and the myriad ways that Blacks confront racism in education, criminal justice, health care, and simply living day-to-day.
Although presented as a novel, this book is a memoir of Brown’s life growing up as a Black boy in Harlem in the 1940s and 50s amid poverty, violence, and addiction.
Marlene was in Paris in the summer of 1969 when a young white American man gave her a book to read. Brown’s story smacked me in the face. He lived in an America that was foreign to me—poverty, addiction, violence, incarceration. His experiences growing up on the streets of Harlem were so different from mine in suburban New Jersey.
What I remember most is my wonder at Brown’s description of “conking” his hair—straightening it with chemical relaxers that damaged his hair and burned his scalp. His description has stayed with me for all these years as a reminder of how little I knew and know about the lives of Blacks and their position in a white world.
This thinly fictionalized account of Claude Brown's childhood as a streetwise criminal trying to survive the toughest streets of Harlem of everyday life for the first generation African American raised in the Northern ghettos of the 1940s and 1950s.
While one-off stories are fantastic, I love that children's series lets readers return to trusted characters. Series allow children to see a wider arc of character development and decision-making—often imperfect and in transition—when they are trying to figure out how to identify and connect with the world themselves. That shared experience over time is why I only write series myself—to let kids evolve alongside their favorite characters.
Five siblings work and grow together to confront one catastrophe after another and keep their way family and community together.
The siblings—Isa, Jessie, Oliver, Hyacinth, and Laney—are written with winning characterization that makes readers feel like they are one of the family. The heart is enormous in this one!
The Vanderbeekers have always lived in the brownstone on 141st Street. It's practically another member of the family. So when their reclusive, curmudgeonly landlord decides not to renew their lease, the five siblings have eleven days to do whatever it takes to stay in their beloved home and convince the dreaded Beiderman just how wonderful they are. And all is fair in love and war when it comes to keeping their home.
