Faith Cross, a beautiful and purely innocent young black woman, is told by her dying mother to go and get herself "a good thing." Thus begins an extraordinary pilgrim's progress that takes Faith from the magic and mysticism of the rural South to the promises and perils of modern-day Chicago. It is an odyssey that propels Faith from the degradation of prostitution, drugs, and drink into a faceless middle-class reality, and finally into a searing tragedy that ironically leads to the discovery of the real Good Thing. National Book Award-winner Charles Johnson's first novel, originally published in 1974, puts the life-affirming soul of the African-American experience at the summit of American storytelling.
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Book Description
Editorial Reviews
Review
The New York Times Book Review An ebullient, philosophical novel...a many splendored and ennobling weaving together of thought, suffering, humor, and magic.
The Washington Post A brilliant novel of allegory, myth, and folk tales, and a vivid realism, very much in the American tradition...It is a novel of rare eloquence and originality, a fable that entertains and informs.
Black World One of the great American novels of this century...unqualifiedly good and extraordinarily beautiful.
The Washington Post A brilliant novel of allegory, myth, and folk tales, and a vivid realism, very much in the American tradition...It is a novel of rare eloquence and originality, a fable that entertains and informs.
Black World One of the great American novels of this century...unqualifiedly good and extraordinarily beautiful.
About the Author
Dr. Charles Johnson, a 1998 MacArthur fellow, is the S. Wilson and Grace M. Pollock Endowed Professor of English at the University of Washington in Seattle. His fiction includes Dr. King's Refrigerator, Dreamer, and Middle Passage, for which he won the National Book Award. In 2002 he received the Academy Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. He lives in Seattle.
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4 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
THE UNENDING QUEST,
This review is from: Faith And The Good Thing (Paperback)
Faith Cross's mother is dying. Before she releases her spirit, the woman entreats her daughter to search for the "good thing" then she dies. Thus begins the metaphysical journey of Faith as she attempts to find the good thing. Author Charles Johnson introduces us to a woman who is not satisfied with the medicrity of life but is determined to find something far more meaningful. She wants the good thing but finding out what it is becomes her dilemma. Faith is led into poverty, prostitution, and false promises that look like the good thing but disappoints her every time. This tale is told through the lens of folklore, philosophy Johnson's characters spew out philosophical musings about the good thing but are unable to sort out their own lives. Although the musings are good, they fail to capture the attention of the reader and fall flat. I enjoyed Faith who like many of us are on the same journey seeking the good thing. Defining what the good thing is and getting it are the challenges that faces everyone. Unfortunately, Johnson was unable to clearly articulate this through this tale but it was a good effort.
0 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Cryptic, boring, and not a believable or enjoyale story to read,
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This review is from: Faith And The Good Thing (Paperback)
This book is overly literary, too didactically philosophical, inaccessible, and a terrible, terrible read. Do not buy this book, I had to for a class and I did not enjoy it at all (the beginning of the book was Ok, then it got worse and worse. I hate you Charles Johnson, you pretentious man).
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Inside This Book
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First Sentence:
It is time to tell you of Faith and the Good Thing. Read the first page Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Swamp Woman, Big Todd, Reverend Brown, Faith Cross, Hatten County, Alpha Omega Jones, Todd Cross, The Sentry, Will Power, Eula May, Isaac Maxwell, West Hell, Arnold Tippis, Doomsday Book, Oscar Lee Jackson, Thaumaturgic Mirror, Hotel Sinclair, South Side, Eden Green, The Trinity, Uncle Bud New!
Concordance | Text Stats Browse Sample Pages:
Front Cover | First Pages | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
It is time to tell you of Faith and the Good Thing. Read the first page Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Swamp Woman, Big Todd, Reverend Brown, Faith Cross, Hatten County, Alpha Omega Jones, Todd Cross, The Sentry, Will Power, Eula May, Isaac Maxwell, West Hell, Arnold Tippis, Doomsday Book, Oscar Lee Jackson, Thaumaturgic Mirror, Hotel Sinclair, South Side, Eden Green, The Trinity, Uncle Bud New!
Concordance | Text Stats Browse Sample Pages:
Front Cover | First Pages | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
Citations (learn more)
This book cites 11
books:
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36
books
cite this book:
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- Middle Passage by Charles Johnson in Front Matter, and Back Matter
- Black Men Speaking by Charles Johnson in Front Matter
- The Divine Comedy (The Inferno, The Purgatorio, and The Paradiso) by Dante Alighieri on page 55
- Divine Comedy (Oxford World's Classics) by Dante Alighieri on page 55
- Will Power: Essays on Shakespearean Authority by Richard Wilson on page 144
See all 11 books this book cites
- Understanding Charles Johnson (Understanding Contemporary American Literature) by Gary Storhoff on 10 pages
- Postmodern Counternarratives: Irony and Audience in the Novels of Paul Auster, Don DeLillo, Charles Johnson, and Tim O'Brien (Literary Criticism and Cultural Theory) by Christopher Donovan on 7 pages
- Absolutely Postcolonial: Writing Between the Singular and the Specific (Angelaki Humanites) by Peter Hallward on 7 pages
- Signs and Cities: Black Literary Postmodernism by Madhu Dubey on 6 pages
- Contemporary Black Men's Fiction and Drama by Keith Clark on 5 pages
See all 36 books citing this book
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