Customer Reviews

Pushkin and the Queen of Spades: A Novel

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Randall's latest novel, "Pushkin and the Queen of Spades" covers a lot of territory. On one level, it's the story of a mother's love for her son and her attempt to protect him from a truth that she feels may crush him. Windsor and Pushkin X - mother and son - are the focal characters in the novel. When Windsor learns of her son's plans to marry a Russian lap dancer, she is forced to reckon with aspects of her past that she has tried desperately to forget. Not only must she find a way to accept her future white daughter-in-law, but she must also find a way to tell her son who his father is. Within this story line, the author demonstrates the current and historical complexities of black/white racial relationships.

On another level, the story examines class and culture conflicts within the African American community. Windsor comes from a family with "all of the vices except those that are unforgivable and none of the virtues except those that are absolutely necessary". It is within this context that Randall explores the difficulties that Windsor has with integrating all facets of her life after a legitimate shift in class and cultural status. ". . . Negroes who survive to thrive exhibit highly original adaptations to life", Windsor tells Pushkin X; and she adapts by compartmentalizing her life in an effort to keep the criminal and abusive aspects of her family background from bleeding into the highly intellectual and academic life she now has as a Russian studies professor at Vanderbilt University. Is it possible to jettison what was then for what is now? Is it necessary? I found this aspect of the novel comparable in many ways to my life experience and the author captures the character's psychological conflicts with apt clarity and clinical insight.

Then there's the literary relationship between the text of Randall's novel and the work of Alexander Pushkin. Although I wasn't familiar with Pushkin's work I had heard of him at some point during my academic career. What I don't recall hearing is that he is of African descent. This bit of knowledge did for me on a small scale what it did for Windsor enormously - it sparked an interest to know more about the African-Russian. It's because of Randall's work that I've recently read Pushkin's "The Queen of Spades", that I've read a little biographical information about the author and his work, and that I will read "The Negro of Peter the Great." There is nothing more beautiful, more powerful, than a novel that entertains, uplifts, and educates; "Pushkin and the Queen of Spades" does all three.

And then there's the rhythm of the story, the beat. Poetic passages and skillfully crafted phrases reflect the author's command of language and knowledge of literary history. "Pushkin and the Queen of Spades" is a monumental accomplishment. Randall packs the story with African-American history and tradition as well as literary creativity and complexity. You'll have to put your thinking hat on for this one but its well worth the effort.

In Pushkin and the Queen of Spades, Alice Randall mixes a spicy gumbo of Russian literature, Motown, and hip-hop that glides across the palate of the mind to rave culinary reviews. It's funky, hip, and sexy, yet sophisticated, cosmopolitan, and righteously poetic. When a Harvard-educated professor's football superstar son decides to marry a Russian lap dancer, her life becomes a retrospective of "where did I go wrong as a single black mother?" Windsor Armstrong thought she had raised her son, Pushkin X, to be a perfect reflection of herself: educated, erudite, and worldly, and sees his taste for the common as a direct rejection of everything she has ingrained in him, including her place in his life. Rather than retreat and wait for him to come to his senses, she writes a hip-hop elegy of epic proportions as a wedding gift in hopes of culling his forgiveness while desperately trying to respect his choices.

"...And my parents did not give me a Russian name, for, other than a few dedicated Communists in the thirties and forties, what black parents ever did?"

That comment, posed by a fictional character in another novel, The Emperor of Ocean Park,is answered here by Alice Randall in the persona of this story's most significant presence, Windsor Armstrong, a Harvard-educated professor of Russian Literature at Vanderbilt University. We meet Windsor as she is about to commence an epoch of self-reflection and introspection brought on by the impending marriage of her son Pushkin to a Russian- born, blond-haired stripper with, as the story unfolds, the ironic name of Tanya.

Over a plate of grilled cheese and French fries in a seedy country western bar, over the next 200 pages or so, the reader is a rapt observer to intellectual self-vivisection as the professor examines exactly why she has arrived at this point of estrangement from her son, brought on by her palpable disenchantment with her son's choice of spouse as well as prior decisions (college choice, career) that failed to correlate to her aspirations for him, never mind the fact he has far exceeded the dreams most parents would ever entertain for their children. Circumstances are further complicated by the secret of Pushkin's parentage as Windsor has historically deflected, or just ignored any and all entreaties from her son regarding the name of his birth father.

Randall has infused enough thematic discourses to support a Doctorate thesis in American studies however, at the core this is a parent's paean to a child-man, an independent thinking and acting adult who has absorbed all of the lessons and knowledge any parent would hope to pass down but one who, while respectful of his elder, will not be hamstrung by any implicit requirement to live his life in accordance with another's vision.

Pushkin and the Queen of Spades is a tour de force exhibiting Ms. Randall's inestimable talents. Whereas her previous novel,The Wind Done Gone: A Novel, brought to mind the prose and style of Zora Neale Hurston, in this work one feels the influences of Joyce, Morrison, and Giovanni. WDG posed the question, "where were the mulatto children of Tara?" "Pushkin..." asks the question, "What are the consequences of our inculcated values?" She demonstrates visceral aplomb in the style of the classicists, post- modernists, or rhythmic fluidity of the urban patois. Whilst the path of introspective reflection allows her to examine the psyche, cultural patterns and distinctiveness of Black Americans in a multiplicity of circumstance and to address the often conflicting objectives of inclusiveness and individuality, Ms. Randall unfolds a story that should foment personal assessment of how we interact with our children and what messages we send to them via our thoughts and actions, whether verbalized or implied.

Much has changed since Alice Randall published Pushkin and the Ace of Spades in May of 2005. February 10, 2007, Barack Obama declared his candidacy for the presidency of the United States. Not much short of two years later, I stood in 23 degree weather on the Capitol Mall listening to him deliver an inaugural address, and as I wrote this, the first African-American president of the U.S. received the Nobel Peace Prize. Regardless of progress that has been made, and regardless of how much is left undone: Randall's book is timeless, and if total sales are a measure, vastly underrated.

The story is told through the eyes and the heart of an African-American Harvard educated woman, Windsor. With a PhD in Russian literature, and tenure at Vanderbilt, the wedding of Windsor's only child, NFL football phenom Pushkin, to a white Russian lap dancer is rapidly approaching. In 288 pages, a lush and potent story of maternal love, race, and family plays out.

Alice Randall is an author, an award winning country music song writer, and a cook (see some of her recipes on her website). No wonder then, that her book is rich in language, melodic and cadenced in its rhythm, and richly flavored. So many times, contemporary authors seem to feel that unless they pin the reader's ears back, or even flay the flesh from their bones, the point won't get across. Pushkin and the Ace of Spades takes a different approach. Though Randall can loft the F-bomb with all the aplomb than her son and gridiron star Pushkin can loft a football, and though she does not shy away from rape or graphic sex, her use of language and her description of sexuality are never gratuitous. Reaching deep into the nature of the mother/son relationship, into her love for friends and family, and into her reflections on racism, her voice is clear, never burdened by gushing sentimentality, and full of integrity rather than brutality. Pushkin and the Queen of Spades is an excellently written, highly informative, pleasurable read, none of which speaks to how important I think this book is.

I'm a white male, pushing sixty. By geography, rather than by choice, it turns out that I can't make that oft-mocked claim "Some of my best friends are blacks". I work, though, to stay informed. I haven't read all of Alice Walker, but at any given gathering of white late middle-aged males...few have read more. Toni Morrison's Beloved.....I read it and learned. I've lived with non-English speaking families in Mexico, worked in Southeast Asian immigrant resettlement efforts, and I've given lectures on cultural competence in multiple different settings. And here's the deal: Randall's Tale of Two Pushkins (the son, and the Russian literary genius) approaches the question of racism with such vibrant creativity and profound depth that I feel thoroughly schooled, and wonderful, both at the same time. Using a firm and strong hand enclosed in a velvet glove, Randall takes on racism far more potently than many before her that smashed away at the subject with ten pound sledge hammers. Late in the book, Randall makes a one line comment about humans and their focus on race that bowled me over and literally raised goose bumps. And I could quote that line, but then, that would spoil all the fun, wouldn't it?

Book clubs: both thumbs enthusiastically up. If your book group doesn't find plenty to savor and discuss in Pushkin and the Queen of Spades, your members need defibrillators to restart their flat-lined hearts, rather than a book recommendation.

Bravo, Alice Randall. Bravissimo!

I have to admit that I gave up on this book at the half-way point. I just could not read any more, although I was mildly curious to find out who Pushkin X's father was. It wasn't worth the pain, though, so I gave up.

In the first place, the book is written somewhat in the manner of Toni Morrison's "Beloved", with one big difference-Morrison is a great writer and Randall is not (based on this book, at any rate). The result is that this book goes on and on in circles. It's deadly dull.

Second, I developed a hearty dislike for the protagonist. Instead of coming off as sympathetic, having had a tough childhood and adolescence, the protagonist comes off as self serving and selfish. Her disappointment in her son, with whose conduct and life I could find little fault, irritated me to the point that I simply could not stand another moment of the protagonist's harangues against him and his girlfriend (who struck me as an intelligent and thoughtful women and no weirder than the mother!).

Third, the idea of connecting the author Pushkin's life and works to contemporary black life is very intriguing (and was the reason I launched into the book in the first place), but the author does nothing with it. She skims over the clichés of Pushkin's life, but never digs into any original connections between him and black identity.

Fourth, what does this book really say about black identity? Granted, I am not black, so there may be some subtle message I am missing, but I learned nothing about black life in the US. The protagonist's life, in any case, is atypical, since she is a professor - hardly mainstream either in black or in white culture. Her childhood struck me as far from typical also.

I really found nothing in the first half of the book to suggest that I ought to invest the effort into reading the second half; so I didn't.

Alice Randall's Pushkin and the Queen of Spades, is, simply put, a great novel. Beginning with the hilarious double entendre of its title the book is rife with meaning and food for thought. The issues addressed in the book, our internal and external lives at the intersection of race and culture and the long term impact that our relations with our parents have on our own children are often discussed in solemn, ponderous and often overly contentious tones. Randall will have none of that. Rather, she embarks on a graceful, biting and often hilarious tour de force that should leave the reader laughing out load while at the same time soaking in the powerful ideas set out neatly inside the pearls of laughter. Mary Poppins once said a little bit of sugar helps the medicine go down. In this instance a while lot of sugar and down right great writing helps open our minds to the sometimes provocative issues she sets out.

The story line itself is simple. Windsor Armstrong is an African American woman, graduate of Harvard, a professor at Vanderbilt University and the holder of a PhD in Russian literature. Her son Pushkin X is named after the great Russian poet and playwright, Alexander Pushkin (author of a famous book The Queen of Spades) whose own African ancestry formed the emotional basis of his work and life including his tragic death in a duel. Pushkin X has dashed Windsor's hopes that he would follow in his mother's academic career. He turned down Harvard and played football, at the University of Michigan. Even worse, Pushkin's football skills have resulted in his becoming a star in the NFL. The book's plot is revealed in the opening paragraph, perhaps one of the funniest opening paragraphs I have read in recent memory. Brief excerpts follow:

"Look what they done to my boy! . . . Fifty million people have watched him on a single Monday night. He has given a Russian girl a diamond ring. He means to get married. My son is a football player engaged to a Russian-born lap dancer, a girl named Tanya who danced at a club call Mons Venus. There is a God and he's punishing me. This much bad luck cannot happen by accident."

It soon becomes apparent that Pushkin X has withdrawn his mother's invitation to his wedding after she expresses opposition to the marriage and, more importantly, after she once again refuses to reveal the identity of Pushkin X's father, long a source of contention between mother and son. The rest of the book is devoted to Windsor's internal dialogue in the days leading up to the wedding. She touches on her early childhood in Detroit up to 1968 and the impact of her relationship with her father, whom she adored, and her mother, whom she did not adore, who took her away from Detroit and her father to D.C. They arrive in D.C. soon after the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King. Despite her unhappiness in D.C. the city (and her mother) provides her with the opportunities that take her on her life's journey to Harvard, to Russia and a career as a scholar. Her internal dialogue continues. Like a river, her dialogue takes many twists and turns. Randall's words emerge as a beautiful stream of consciousness that leads us to many new and unexpected destinations. She is never boring and often profound. She is also funny and downright sassy at times as she embarks on riffs that touch on such diverse topics as her sex life, Malcolm X, `the souls of black folks', and writers such as Colson Whitehead and others. She touches on the meaning of being a mother and how the love of a mother (or father) for a child can bring more pain than we sometimes think we can endure. Simply put, in a context that Windsor Armstrong might enjoy - Curtis Mayfield may have had Windsor Armstrong in mind when he wrote the words "the woman's got soul".

The identity of Pushkin X's father and the nature of his conception gradually emerge as the book reaches it climax. That climax includes Windsor's wedding gift to Pushkin X - which gift is worth the price of the book standing alone.

In many respects the structure of Randall's dialogues are reminiscent of James Joyce's Ulysses. This is not to compare Randall to Joyce necessarily but I think it is no small compliment to the power of Randall's writing to even be thought of with Joyce in the same paragraph. As Christopher Hitchens once said about a writer once compared to Tolstoy, to be even compared to Tolstoy (or Joyce in this instance) is no small achievement even if one hasn't quite reach that stature (yet). I enjoyed the book tremendously and encourage anyone with an interest in good books to pick this up and read it. It is a book to be enjoyed and savored.

The book had too much going on for me to relate to any of the characters. I'm so tired of novels about black successful men deciding to marry white unsuccessful women. I've heard it all before. Most black men do listen to their mothers.

The book arrived quickly. It was in very good condition. I just need time to read it well to fully appreciate the plots going on in the story.

After her controversial debut The Wind Done Gone, a parody of Gone With The Wind, Alice Randall is back on the literary front with PUSHKIN AND THE QUEEN OF SPADES, a work of art presenting deeper observations on race, classism, interracial relationships, motherhood, family, and love. Embedded in these themes are strands of humor, literary references, and a mother's love and frustration in protecting her son from the realities and cruelties of the world.

Windsor Armstrong is a professor of Russian literature and has named her son Pushkin X after Alexander Pushkin, the Afro-Russian poet and Malcolm X. She raised Pushkin with the hopes that he would one day follow in her footsteps, as an intellectual, not boxed in the same stereotypical class of many other black men. Unfortunately, Pushkin has his own ideas and goals in life. He excels in football, turns down a scholarship to Harvard, and eventually advances to the NFL, to the horror of Windsor. When he announces his marriage to a white Russian lap dancer, Windsor finds herself lost in a myriad of emotions.

"Pissed" would be the forefront emotion as she takes his announcement personally, wondering why he didn't choose a black woman, why he chose the life he lives, and how she can continue to love him, considering all of the issues she finds with him. Tossing back and forth from the past to the present, she relives her life, her troubles, pain, and happiness, as she creates a wedding gift for Pushkin -- a narrative of her life. Through the revelation of her disappointments, we're able to further understand her anger and the love she has for Pushkin. In addition, we're given a multifaceted view of her character and her past.

PUSHKIN AND THE QUEEN OF SPADES is an exploratory journey for Windsor as she searches for identity and reconciliation. It is at times moving, hilarious at others, but, nonetheless, adeptly addresses many concerns faced by parents. It is definitely a book to be read slowly, up close and afar, to catch exactly what's going on throughout the pages. It is an exciting look into contemporary fiction with a literary edge.

Reviewed by Tee C. Royal
of The RAWSISTAZ™ Reviewers

For rest the heart is aching;
Days follow days in flight, and every day is taking
Fragments of being, while together you and I
Make plans to live. Look, all is dust, and we shall die."
Alexander Pushkin

Alice Randall's "Pushkin and the Queen of Spades", is a terrific novel. Beginning with the double entendre of its title the book is rife with meaning and food for thought. The issues addressed in the book, our internal and external lives at the intersection of race and culture and the long term impact that our relations with our parents have on our own children are often discussed in solemn, ponderous and often overly contentious tones. Randall will have none of that. Rather, she embarks on a graceful, biting and often hilarious tour de force that should leave the reader laughing out load while at the same time soaking in the powerful ideas set out neatly inside the pearls of laughter. Mary Poppins once said a little bit of sugar helps the medicine go down. In this instance a while lot of sugar and down right great writing helps open our minds to the sometimes provocative issues she sets out.

The story line itself is simple. Windsor Armstrong is an African American woman, graduate of Harvard, a professor at Vanderbilt University and the holder of a PhD in Russian literature. Her son Pushkin X is named after the great Russian poet and playwright, Alexander Pushkin (author of a famous book The Queen of Spades) whose own African ancestry formed the emotional basis of his work and life including his tragic death in a duel. Pushkin X has dashed Windsor's hopes that he would follow in his mother's academic career. He turned down Harvard and played football, at the University of Michigan. Even worse, Pushkin's football skills have resulted in his becoming a star in the NFL. The book's plot is revealed in the opening paragraph, perhaps one of the funniest opening paragraphs I have read in recent memory. Brief excerpts follow:

"Look what they done to my boy! . . . Fifty million people have watched him on a single Monday night. He has given a Russian girl a diamond ring. He means to get married. My son is a football player engaged to a Russian-born lap dancer, a girl named Tanya who danced at a club call Mons Venus. There is a God and he's punishing me. This much bad luck cannot happen by accident."

It soon becomes apparent that Pushkin X has withdrawn his mother's invitation to his wedding after she expresses opposition to the marriage and, more importantly, after she once again refuses to reveal the identity of Pushkin X's father, long a source of contention between mother and son. The rest of the book is devoted to Windsor's internal dialogue in the days leading up to the wedding. She touches on her early childhood in Detroit up to 1968 and the impact of her relationship with her father, whom she adored, and her mother, whom she did not adore, who took her away from Detroit and her father to D.C. They arrive in D.C. soon after the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King. Despite her unhappiness in D.C. the city (and her mother) provides her with the opportunities that take her on her life's journey to Harvard, to Russia and a career as a scholar. Her internal dialogue continues. Like a river, her dialogue takes many twists and turns. Randall's words emerge as a beautiful stream of consciousness that leads us to many new and unexpected destinations. She is never boring and often profound. She is also funny and downright sassy at times as she embarks on riffs that touch on such diverse topics as her sex life, Malcolm X, `the souls of black folks', and writers such as Colson Whitehead and others. She touches on the meaning of being a mother and how the love of a mother (or father) for a child can bring more pain than we sometimes think we can endure. Simply put, in a context that Windsor Armstrong might enjoy - Curtis Mayfield may have had Windsor Armstrong in mind when he wrote the words "the woman's got soul".

The identity of Pushkin X's father and the nature of his conception gradually emerge as the book reaches it climax. That climax includes Windsor's wedding gift to Pushkin X - which gift is worth the price of the book standing alone.

In many respects the structure of Randall's dialogues are reminiscent of James Joyce's Ulysses. This is not to compare Randall to Joyce necessarily but I think it is no small compliment to the power of Randall's writing to even be thought of with Joyce in the same paragraph. As Christopher Hitchens once said about a writer once compared to Tolstoy, to be even compared to Tolstoy (or Joyce in this instance) is no small achievement even if one hasn't quite reach that stature (yet). I enjoyed the book tremendously and encourage anyone with an interest in good books to pick this up and read it. It is a book to be enjoyed and savored.