A collection of stories set in Trinidad introduces readers to a colorful cast of characters, ranging from a pair of hapless tourists at a witchcraft ceremony to a hunch-backed shoemaker feuding with a one-armed butcher.
--This text refers to the
Hardcover
edition.
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Book Description
Editorial Reviews
From Library Journal
Pulsing through this debut collection are the visceral shocks of violent confrontation, dark ritual, human and natural fertility, and gritty street commerce. In his stories, Trinidadian-American ex-scientist James reveals a Trinidad of sensory extremes--lush vegetation, urgent sexual longing, sudden physical brutality--and a New York of bizarre encounters in city parks and of small-scale organized terror. Gentler, equally affecting stories of passage connect these locations: comrade newcomers respond in unexpected ways to an overwhelming New York, and a young father finds three generations of alienation and one strong bond during a bittersweet visit home to Trinidad. Uneven but expressive and compelling, this book will enhance contemporary fiction and area collections.
- Janet Ingraham, Worthington P.L., Ohio
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
- Janet Ingraham, Worthington P.L., Ohio
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
From Kirkus Reviews
Fourteen stories in an uneven debut by a Trinidad-born Harlem resident: macho-flavored, visceral material too often undercut by verbal and structural convolutions. James does fine work when he brings together a bit of Trinidadian speech and the playful inventiveness of black English to tell a straightforward story about the varied worlds he knows: a ``country-wild and Caribbeano'' sailor follows the friend he believes more worldly to opportunity in New York; a teenager rises in the drug world through his willingness to betray and execute a one-time buddy; a gang of kids plans to mug the moneyed white folks in a park while their leader's ``word whip'' reminds them to be ``Proficient Tacticians,'' not a ``Perverse Gang''; a Trinidadian takes his American-raised son on a roots-home visit where the growing bond between father and son is threatened by the embittered grandmother. ``Open Conflict,'' initially impenetrable, gives inadequate payoff for its difficulty. But throughout the collection, the language too often overreaches, more self-conscious and amateurish than original: a bag-lady scavenging trash shoves her hand ``unhesitating into each newfound crater of risk''; a mango-lover ``In furthering this theory of its excellence...researched [it] devotedly by gourmandizing every sample he could find''; an erection is ``the fleshed temptation''; one narrator finds ``My sympathy quickly diffused, unmasking the rudeness of his intrusion'' when a stranger takes a helping of peanuts. James may go the distance once he settles down. -- Copyright ©1992, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
--This text refers to the
Hardcover
edition.
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More About the Author
Kelvin Christopher James has written 2 short story collections and 4 novels, all critically acclaimed, Mooch is his fifth novel. He has been the recipient of a New York Foundation for the Arts fellowship in fiction and a National Endowment for the Arts fellowship in Literature.
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5.0 out of 5 stars
best short stories I've ever read,
This review is from: Jumping Ship and Other Stories (Paperback)
Short story fiction generally consists of a short plot and then a twist. In the stories of Jumping Ship, there's a twist in every other dancing word. The prose is playful, yet highly sophisticated. The subject matter is serious enough; the humour lies in the dances of the words and sentences themselves. Don't understand what I'm talking about? Then you must read these stories.
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