John Henrik Clarke (1915–1998)

3/27/22:
Me in mid-February: Argh! How do I decide what to read next? Oh, I know, it's Black History Month! Hey, why don't I spend each month this year reading books according to each cultural history month? I can do at least two a month, no sweat. Hey, this short story anthology is a great way to not limit myself to one experience or to genre fiction. Oh, and I'm an overachiever who doesn't think things through, so I'm going to write a one-sentence summary of each story and pick one favorite quote.

My brain at the end of February: Mwahahaha! Thou shalt not read ANYTHING for the foreseeable future!

So yeah, my reading motivation smashed into a million pieces and I'm still picking them up and putting them back together. But I'm halfway through Black American Short Stories and I WILL finish it...I just may not continue my silly summary project to do it.

Favorite stories so far:
* The Goophered Grapevine, by Charles Waddell Chesnutt
* A Summer Tragedy, by Arna Bontemps
* The Gilded Six-Bits, by Zora Neale Hurston
* Bright Morning Star, by Richard Wright
* The Boy Who Painted Christ Black, by John Henrick Clarke
* And/Or, by Sterling Brown
* How John Boscoe Outsung the Devil, by Arthur P. Davis
* Mama's Missionary Money, but Chester Himes
* See How They Run, by Mary Elizabeth Vroman

That's, like, half of them. Well, I guess this is an anthology of best short stories by Black Americans spanning almost a hundred years, so the quality is well above that of most anthologies I read. I won't kick myself into winnowing them down further.

More to come...eventually.… (más)

This book is an absolutely incredible journey through the lives of Black Americans, starting in 1907 and ending in 1990. One after the other, I was enmeshed in the worlds of these awesome characters, and their journies. What an education - I really learned a lot. There really is not a bad story in the bunch, and time and time again, I was like "who is this author?" because I was so interested in what else they may have written. So sad that most never achieved mainstream success, because these where a great bunch of writers. Racism still abounds too, because it takes a huge amount of digging to find some of their other works, not to mention, this book was not even in my entire library system. Anyway, there were so many great stories, I am not sure I can pick favorites, but to me, these were a notch above: "The Gilded Six Bits" by Zora Neale Hurston; "Bright and Morning Star" by Richard Wright; "The Homecoming" by Frank Yerby; "The Senaglese" by Hoyt W. Fuller, "Cry for Me" by William Melvin Kelley and "The Wife" by Jennifer Jordan.… (más)