Rails Under My Back

Allen, Jeffrey Renard

ISBN 10: 0374246262 / ISBN 13: 9780374246266

Edité par Farrar Straus Giroux, 2000

A propos de cet article

New York. 2000. Farrar Straus Giroux. 1st American Edition. Some Spotting On Top Edge, Otherwise Very Good in Dustjacket. 0374246262. 563 pages. hardcover. Cover: Chris Scott. keywords: African American Literature America. DESCRIPTION - An astonishing debut novel, exploring the bonds, boundaries, and bondage of an African American family. Rails Under My Back is a daring work of art that reveals its family theme in a stunning depiction of its paradoxically opposite: abandonment. In this multifaceted, brilliantly colored, intensely musical novel, Jeffery Renard Allen tracks the interwoven lives of two brothers, Lucius and John Jones, who are married to two sisters, Gracie and Sheila McShan. For them, their parents, and their children, life is always full of departures; someone is always fleeing town and leaving the remaining family to suffer the often dramatic, sometimes tragic consequences. The multiple effects of the comings and goings are devastating: these are the almost mythic expression of the African American experience during the past half-century. Rails Under My Back ranges, as the characters do, from the City, which is somewhat like both New York and Chicago, to Memphis, to the West, and to many 'inner' and 'outer' locales. One image that holds the family together is that of the railroads taking them from place to place-from the South to the North, from their living to their working quarters, from one form of bondage or freedom to another. The McShans and the Joneses somehow prevail, in their bigger-than-life way, and their story has extraordinary literary, religious, and historical power. Allen's voice is unforgettable. inventory #32899 Some Spotting On Top Edge, Otherwise Very Good in Dustjacket.

N° de réf. du vendeur z32899

Détails bibliographiques

• Titre: Rails Under My Back
• Éditeur: Farrar Straus Giroux
• Date de parution: 2000
• Langue: anglais
• ISBN à 10 chiffres: 0374246262
• ISBN à 13 chiffres: 9780374246266
• Reliure: hardcover
• Édition: First Edition.
• État de la jaquette: Very Good

A propos de ce titre

Synopsis

Book by Allen Jeffrey Renard

Présentation de l'éditeur

A dazzling family saga that brilliantly reflects the reality of the African-American experience in the United States

Hatch and Jesus Jones are cousins on their fathers' side and on their mothers' side, and you can't have a family much more bound than that. And family is the most important entity for these young men, even when family seems to be defined by abandonment. Rails Under My Back traces these two men from one form of bondage or freedom to another, from one job to another, as they face down danger and try to come to terms with their family's past.

This ambitious novel, which has been hailed by critics nationwide as a rare achievement on the level of fiction by Toni Morrison, James Baldwin, and Richard Wright, is the communal expression of a century of African-American life in America, with its imagery of exodus and exile, departure and destiny. It wields extraordinary literary, religious, and historical power, and announces the triumphant debut of a most powerful and utterly original voice.