Whose Song?: And Other Stories [Paperback]

Thomas Glave (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 1, 2001

“Thomas Glave walks the path of such greats in American literature as Richard Wright and James Baldwin . . . he cuts to the bone of what it means to be black in America, white in America, gay in America, and human in the world at large.” — Gloria Naylor

An excerpt:

The words to every song on earth are buried deep somewhere. Songs that must be sung, that must never be sung. That must be released from deep within the chest yet pulled back and held. Plaintive and low, they rail; buried forever beneath the passing flesh, alone and cold, they scream. The singer must clutch them to the heart, where they are sanctified, nurtured, healed. Songs which finally must be released yet recalled, in that place where no one except the singer ever comes, in one hand caressing the keys of life wounded, ravaged, in the other those of the precious skin and life revealed. The three of them and Cassandra know the words. Lying beneath them now and blind, she knows the words. Tasting turpentine and fire, she knows the words. -- Hell no, yo, that bitch ain't dead.-- A voice. -- Fucked up, yo. The rag's in her mouth, how we gone get some mouth action now?-- -- Aw, man, fuck that shit.-- Who says that? -- My turn. My turn.-- They know the words.

Night. Hell, no, broods the dim, that bitch ain't dead. Hasn't uttered half a sound since they began; hasn't opened her eyes to let the night look in again; hasn't breathed to the soft beating of the nightbird's wing. The turpentine rag in place. Cassandra, Cassandra. The rag, in place. Cassandra. Is she feeling something now? Cassandra. Will they do anything more to her now? Cassandra, will they leave you there? Focusing on flies, not meeting each other's eyes, will they leave you there? Running back from the burning forests behind their own eyes, the crackling and the shame? Will they leave you there? -- Push that bitch out on the ground, the one they call Dee says. -- Over there, by them cars and shit.-- Rusty cars, a dumping ground. So, Cassandra. Yes. They'll leave you there. Were they afraid? Happy? Who can tell? Three dark boys, three men, driving away in a battered car. Three boy-men, unseen, flesh, minds, heart. Flame. In their car. O my God, three rapists, the pret

Editorial Reviews

Review

"...an extraordinary stylist, whose rare insight, boundless courage, and fierce imagination make these stories resound long after you turn the last page." -- The Village Voice

"A fiercely imagined debut — intensely lyric, driven by the desire, in the face of everything, for truth, justice, beauty." -- Carole Maso

"His story snapped my head back. I knew within a few sentences that here was the real thing." -- David Lynn, editor Kenyon Review

"This collection of short stories is heartstopping... It may be as important to this century’s body of literature as Kafka’s Metamorphosis was to the last." -- Harry Belafonte

"What a writer! What a book! [Glave's] stories are intricate tapestries of life rendered through a triumphant act of the imagination." -- Clarence Major

Thomas Glave... has that essential writer's ear for the way different people speak within their cultures... -- Nadine Gordimer

From the Publisher

Whose Song? And Other Stories is the literary debut of a talented young writer, Thomas Glave. His writing is marked by an energy, an ambition, and a fearlessness that are all too rare.

Threads of African American and gay experience, as well as Caribbean and Caribbean-American culture and history connect these stories, set in the Bronx and other parts of New York City, Boston, the American South, and the Caribbean. "Commitment" takes place on the day before a wedding in the rural South. Two young black men are forced to end their clandestine relationship as the father of one of them threatens to kill them both. In "Their Story," two elderly men, one from Jamaica and the other from the South, lose their wives and find comfort with each other. "—And Love Them?" is the one-sided dialogue of a white woman, an office worker who tries to communicate her conflicted feelings toward "them," that is, the black people she encounters at her job, on the streets of New York, and in her imagination. And "The Pit" is a haunting, harrowing tale about a young Caribbean boy who visits the site of an enormous killing field and returns to his terrorized village endowed with prop! hetic powers.

Thomas Glave is a deft stylist, and each of the nine stories in this collection reveals yet another of his successful technical experiments.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 264 pages
• Publisher: City Lights Publishers (January 1, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0872863751
• ISBN-13: 978-0872863750
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.5 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #715,247 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Thomas Glave was born in the Bronx and grew up there and in Kingston, Jamaica. A two-time New York Foundation for the Arts Fellow, he is a graduate of Bowdoin College and Brown University. His work has earned many honors, including the Lambda Literary Award in 2005, an O. Henry Prize (he is the second gay African American writer, after James Baldwin, to win this award), a Fine Arts Center in Provincetown Fellowship, and a Fulbright fellowship to Jamaica. While there, he worked on issues of social justice, and helped found the Jamaica Forum of Lesbians, All-Sexuals, and Gays. Thomas Glave is the author of Whose Song? and Other Stories, the essay collection Words to Our Now: Imagination and Dissent (winner of a 2005 Lambda Literary Award), and is editor of the anthology Our Caribbean: A Gathering of Lesbian and Gay Writing from the Antilles.  He is the 2008-2009 Martin Luther King Jr. Visiting Professor in the Program in Writing and Humanistic Studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Transformation of Silences, December 8, 2000

By 

Salamishah Tillet (Cambridge, MA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Whose Song?: And Other Stories (Paperback)

Thomas Glave's Whose Song and Other Stories is a triumphant short story collection that articulates the sounds and shouts of otherwise marginal figures. Moving back and forth from the Caribbean to the American South to the Northern metropolises, Glave captures the fluidity and undecidability of what it means to be "Black," "Caribbean," "queer," "straight," and "gendered" in our society. Glave skillfuly crafts narratives which are beautiful and disturbing and forces us, as readers, to enter the never written before, but often lived, reality of characters. An amazing first book and a definite read!!!

3 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Gifted Author, January 22, 2002

By 

Terrance H. Heath "terrancedc" (Washington, DC) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Whose Song?: And Other Stories (Paperback)

I had the pleasure of interviewing Thomas Glave for a local paper, and read his book in order to prepare for the interview. I'm reminded of something Toni Morrison said about her practice as a writer, and that is that she writes the kind of stories she would want to read. Thomas Glave writes the kind of stories I want to read, and gives voice through his writing to people and experience not often heard above the din of the rest of humanity. His writing is highly readable, and he tackles his subject matter with compassion for his characters and his reader, but without attempting to find pat answers to the challenges and choices his characters face. I highly recommend this book, and hope to see much more from Glave in the future.

1 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Glave brings a new level of intensity to his work, December 30, 2003

By 

"prendy" (Europe) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Whose Song?: And Other Stories (Paperback)

Thomas Glave forces us, through his work, to confront an intensity which often lies buried in our consciousness. The work is at times overwhelming due to the images conjured up such as the erotic and in some cases, the violent undertones (See stories on "Accidents" and "Whose Song"). The reader has to, in the process of reading, face these images and dwell on them as the stories progress. It can either be a comfortable, "inhibition-lowering experience" or totally uncomfortable. The reader's mind has to expand to accomodate the content and the scope of the stories.

Glave also deals readily with issues which many would chose not to address, homosexuality, rape, depression, gruesome accidents etc. which in the final analylis are all part of daily exisitence. He also deals with issues of commitment and the dilemma of sexulaity. He tenacious and unapologetic in his approach to the subject matter and one has to admire this quality in the work.

Glave also weaves his Jamaican-American upbringing and perspective into the work which is clearly a foundation of his identity. As a fellow West Indian, there is far more than just the ring of authenticity to the work, one can relate to it.

Glave's work is therefore a clear indication of an expansive and an intensely imaginative mind. In addition, he writes with an authority which draws the reader in to the work, whatever the end feeling, comfort or discomfort. One perspective which is hard,at times, to swallow is Glave's construction of reality/the final outcome which veers towards the unfulfilled and which I do not necessarily see as the outcome perhaps fifty percent of the time.

Thumbs up to Glave! The book is strongly recommended! We also look forward to his future work.