A follow-up to the controversial novel How to Make Love to a Negro
(not reviewed), and a hard look at race, sex, class, and fame in
America. When "an influential East Coast magazine" commissioned a
long article from Laferriere, he took it as an opportunity to
crisscross America. This assemblage of field notes from his travels
covers such diverse subjects as his return to the bar where he hung
out as a struggling writer; the Nigerian taxi driver who criticizes
his work as a betrayal of his race (he replies that defending his
people "doesn't make for good writing" and all he cares about is
"fall, decadence, frustration, bitterness, the bile that keeps us
alive"); the beautiful blonde who insists that life with her
African lover involves feelings as well as sex; the young black who
complains that he gives too much press to white women and cajoles
him to write about her next. Laferriere also takes a moment to fill
us in on the diverse reactions to How to Make Love to a Negro (one
woman threw a glass of wine in his face; another had the title
tattooed on her body) and his impressions of everyone from Miles
Davis to Ice Cube, who argues that blacks are still slaves while
Laferriere believes that they have created contemporary America
together with whites. If this sounds like a series of snapshots,
even the author admits that it is: "American reality...is more
cinema than novel, more jump cut than dissolve, scenes that run
over each other and don't follow any logical sequence...This book
is no exception." (See also the review in this issue of
Laferriere's novel, Dining with the Dictator, p. 1295.) The strange
mix of humor, honesty, impertinence, and self-importance may
satisfy Laferriere's dedicated fans, but most readers will find it
about as meaningful as a one-night stand. (Kirkus Reviews)
General
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