What stories have influenced your worldview?
As February comes to a close, I wanted to spend some time in this newsletter highlighting some of my favorite literature pieces by Black authors.
I won’t take up too much of your time here but I do encourage you to look at your bookshelf and see what stories you’ve allowed to impact your worldview. And if you have the power and access to influence publishing companies, I encourage you to look for the stories we’re missing from our bookshelves.
Along with my recommendations below, you can find another one of my book recommendations, Tania the Revolutionary, on Amazon for Kindle and paperback or Barnes & Noble for eBook.
Colson Whitehead's novel tells a familiar story of cultural failure to care about what becomes of people after they've entered our penal system…The fundamental fact that makes the system run is that we don't care. We are willing to pay our taxes and funnel more and more money toward the system, but then we turn our attention elsewhere.
In praise of James Alan McPherson and his story A Solo Song: For Doc (featured in the Hue and Cry collection of short stories). Trains were on the way out when McPherson wrote his elegiac story. Another thing that ended was an entire way of life lived by the African American cooks and waiters who ran the dining cars. McPherson's story is about what happened when the railroads figured this out and moved to shut it down.
Read Ellison's Invisible Man and this book back to back and an unavoidable truth may leap out at you: Our failure to progress in America is truly obvious.
In 1957, nobody even wanted to acknowledge the real situation in African-America's capital city of Harlem. In fact, the title of this Harlem Detective series novel was considered too inflammatory in 1957, so it was first titled For Love of Imabelle. But its purpose is not really to entertain, as is often the case with a detective novel.
This month’s movie rec is The Brother from Another Planet. Directed by John Sayles, this 1984 film is a gem. It fits neatly between comedy and science fiction and has all the makings of a great 1980’s cult classic.
For any new readers: My new novel, Tania the Revolutionary, is available on Amazon for Kindle and paperback or Barnes & Noble for eBook.