From Publishers Weekly
A painter, gallery owner, poet and debut novelist, Simmons gives us a not entirely convincing portrait of New York's East Village 1980s bohemian culture. The protagonist, Crow Shade, a black cocaine addict, steals three paintings and a book manuscript produced by a friend in the Bedford-Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn and attempts to sell them in the Village, passing them off as his own work. In the process he meets an assortment of unusual characters, ranging from bag ladies to Andy Warhol. He becomes particularly close to Candy, a gorgeous, streetwise Puerto Rican store clerk, who, we later discover, conveniently happens to have a master's degree in art history and appraisal. Another friend, Bones, appears to be a penniless hippie, but turns to his middle-class family when the going gets rough; he has art world connections, too. Crow's most important mentor is Melissa, a Louisiana conjure woman who is also an intellectual, artist and owner of an apartment building. When she meets him, Melissa has some doubts whether Crow is the artist and writer he claims to be. She challenges him to improvise some poetry, which he does instinctively and brilliantly, to his great surprise. Later, he manages to get the three stolen paintings into a well-attended art show. The gallery owner wants more canvases, so Crow intuitively paints three outstanding pieces guided by "forces." Crow's sudden discovery of his poetic and artistic gifts, Melissa's all-knowing and all-powerful persona and the plethora of idealized characters, coincidences and amazing revelations make this work difficult to take seriously, in spite of its colorful and entertaining depiction of the East Village in its glory days.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Crow Shade is a cocaine-fueled hustler from Brooklyn who is about to crash the party on his own 15 minutes of fame. Crow steals some paintings from a friend and plans to hock the work as his own on the streets of Manhattan to get his next fix. From this point on, Crow gets caught up in a string of lies, which culminates in his being celebrated as the next big thing in the Lower East Side art scene. Crow eventually discovers he actually has his own native talent and his own guilt, but will that be enough to make him do the right thing? Simmons does an uncanny job summoning up the highs and lows of the early 1980s. The excitement of the time is palpable, but despite an interesting cast of characters, Simmons fails to take the potentially edgy story in a meaningful direction. Ultimately the story, like the sex scenes, has a cartoonish quality. (Some readers may find that the real strength of the book is the wonderful paintings by Simmons that preface each chapter.)
David HellmanCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
