Customer Reviews

I Get on the Bus: A Novel

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

For the last three centuries, black Americans, disillusioned with America, have looked to the ancestral land of Africa as a near mythical retreat. From the Anti-Bellum ramblings of David Walker, the Black Star Line rhetoric of Garvey, to the expatriate movement of the latter twentieth century, Africa has continued to hang in the distance, the supposed Utopia where melanin is master and ofays are absent. Heaven. Enter I GET ON THE BUS, and with it, despite the surrealistic ramblings of one confused and cursed Peace Corps brother, enter truth. Africa is bigger than all our romances and to stand before it is to stand before a moving train, its people have their own loyalties that don't conform to black American desires, needs. It is a land that invites a fool, then ignores it as it is devoured. And for this tale we are given a voice that is as passionate as it is dislocated, replacing unmentionable emotions with florid descriptions soaked in frustration, anger and confusion. "I get on the bus." A mantra repeated again and again from a speaker constently struggling to negotiate the world in which he's found himself trapped.

Surreal, horrifying, intense - an African-American explores the meaning of the hypen and slips into a very personal nightmare. What I like best is how the structure of the story - nonlinear, hallucinatory - mirrors what's going on in the main character's head. Despite (or because of) the obvious literary merits, the book is a page-turner in the same way a horror novel would be. Really the best book I have ever read.

This book provoked many uncomfortable thoughts, ideas and feelings about African Americans in search of themselves, via the "mother land". In it, the protagonist goes to Senegal ( a West African Country, contrary to previous reviewer's information about the Continent) to find himself and recover from depression. In a malaria induced state of delirium, he witnesses a murder which illicits his drive to find meaning for his life. I felt the journey of the protagonist to be similiar to that which many African American men face; how to find meaning for one's life and leave an impression on the world in the wake of trauma. As the story unfolds, West African mysticism becomes central to the storytelling, which again parallels the search of the "common man." I enjoyed the book. I found it compelling in it's approach toward addressing contemporary social issues facing African Americans, with an international twist. *** If anyone knows how to aquire additional copies of this book, I'd like to purchase others. Please contact me at the email address listed above.*****

Taught me a lot about writing.
Thoughtful prose.
I couldn't put this book down.

There IS the kernel of a compelling story here; unfortunately, Mr. McKnight fails abysmally in his attempt to tell it. The writing is frequently flat and uninspired, and the overly descriptive, pseudo-surrealistic prose kills the story's momentum. A crashing bore.

Simply dreadful. A sickly black American visits a north African country, and contemplates his navel. Nothing of consequence happens, and the author's attempts at creating surreal imagery fall flat. A complete and utter waste of paper. Mr. McKnight should hang onto his day job

A strange, solipsistic tale of a very sickly black man visiting Africa. Nothing momentous or sufficiently memorable occurs during the course of this story. It is painful, at best, to read