1981, ISBN: 9780380785193

New York. 1981. October 1981. Avon Books. 1st American Edition. Previous Owner's Name Penned in Front, Otherwise Very Good in Wrappers. 0380785196. Paperback Original . 205 pages. pap… More...

New York. 1981. October 1981. Avon Books. 1st American Edition. Previous Owner's Name Penned in Front, Otherwise Very Good in Wrappers. 0380785196. Paperback Original . 205 pages. paperback. . keywords: Literature Black America. FROM THE PUBLISHER - WHAT IS FAMILY? It is the births and the dying, the voices that recount and remember and bear witness. Here are the generations of an American family powerful in their endurance - from Damballah, the sacred ancient Father, to big-hat John French, the gambling man, swallowing the caterpillar his baby daughter nibbled on; from Freeda who waits silent and angry for Death the Chinaman, to stillborn Lizabeth, plunged in an alley snowdrift to shock her into life. As John Edgar Wideman renders their tale-telling and jive, he hears the cadences of their lives; hears the love that may be more dangerous than hate; hears the need that tells them to keep faith with the past - when Down Home is everywhere you've never been - and let it bear you up. DAMBALLAH is not only an unsparing, unsentimental portrait of a family and the Black experience. It is a vision of all families, each a single, unending story told by many voices. THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW calls John Edgar Wideman ‘a novelist of high seriousness and depth,' who knows ‘what makes the world of words and the interaction of dreams reach the sensual state of literature.' He is a writer whose ‘enormous care and intelligence' puts ‘white readers deep in black heads.' inventory #12830 ISBN: 0380785196., 0<