It’s a book that’s been in the works for over a decade, and many of the stories have app
It’s a book that’s been in the works for over a decade, and many of the stories have appeared (in earlier iterations) in over half a dozen literary magazines. All are set in the fictional town of Cross River, Maryland, a historically black community founded in the early 19th century by the only successful slave revolt in United States history. Scott’s fiction is at once incredibly precise, rooted in contemporary reality, and dreamy, magical, uncertain. I found myself thinking of (and often bringing up) the living master of contemporary short fiction, and fiction of place, Edward P. Jones, but Scott also reaches back to Sherwood Anderson, to Faulkner, to Márquez. Some stories disorient: “Juba” follows a man who is constantly mistaken for a semi-legendary weed dealer. Others puncture: “Party Animal” nearly drowns its readers in lengthy footnotes that savagely parody scientific language. My favorites, “Good Times” (which features an utterly filthy tragicomic Cookie Monster costume) and “A Friendly Game” (about, in part, the cruelty of boys), devastate in plainly realistic but utterly astonishing ways.Cross River: Talking with Insurrections Author Rion Amilcar ScottI LOVED THIS BOOK. -- source link
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