Topdog/Underdog

By Suzan-Lori Parks,

Book cover of Topdog/Underdog

Book description

A darkly comic fable of brotherly love and family identity, winner of the 2002 Pulitzer Prize for Drama.

Suzan-Lori Parks' play Topdog/Underdog tells the story of Lincoln and Booth, two brothers whose names were given to them as a joke, foretelling a lifetime of sibling rivalry and resentment. Haunted by…

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Why read it?

1 author picked Topdog/Underdog as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

This is the play that made Suzan-Lori Parks the first African-American woman to win a Pulitzer Prize for Drama.

It features only two characters and takes place in only one room, but it is a dynamite exploration of the competitive relationship between two adult African-American brothers who have been abandoned by everyone else in their lives. One brother is a petty thief who wants to become a three-card-monte dealer. The other is an Abraham Lincoln impersonator who works as a target in a mock shooting gallery.

For me, the excitement of this play is all about discovering who these two…

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