Finding new fiction voices to rival the old

Review by Robert Fleming

  • A critic recently complained that there was a dearth of capable black contemporary male novelists, citing a lack of talents comparable to James Baldwin, John A. Williams, Ishmael Reed, and Richard Wright. Not so. Young, strong artists in African American fiction are emerging in increasing numbers from every segment of that community.

    One literary debut already causing some fuss is Calvin Baker's Naming the New World (A Bob Wyatt Book for St. Martin's Press, $18.95, 0312151780), which traces the generations of a black family from mythic African roots to today through a dazzling chorus of voices. Using the basic elements of life as the building blocks for plot and drama, the author depicts the age-old quest among the members of this clan to carve out a place in the rapidly evolving young America with grit, magic, and boldness going back to their ancestors. Most notable among the characters are Ampofo, the determined slave, and Robert, the ambitious businessman, in this larger-than-life epic that clings to the memory long after finishing the book.


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  • If there is any debate about the potential of the young lions coming on the scene, that will be eliminated by the arrival of Brian Keith Jackson's The View from Here (Pocket, $22, 9671568957), a fictional study of two rural Southern women, Anna Anderson Thomas and her best friend, Ida Mae Ramsey. They share a common past but make widely different life choices which challenge their childhood dreams. Thomas settles for a mundane domestic existence while Ramsey opts for the neon lure of the Big City. Neither route is painless or without its regrets. In the end, both realize the deep bonds of friendship are all that matters. Jackson has a sure feel for dialogue and a sumptuous sense of time and place.


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  • Remember the war classics, Stephen Crane's Red Badge of Courage and Erich Maria Remarque's All Quiet on the Western Front? Well, Albert French, riding the success of his last two novels, has produced his own "war-is-hell" entry, Patches of Fire: A Story of War and Redemption (Anchor, $22.95, 0385483635). It's a harrowing view of a young black man's experiences in the Vietnam War and the emotional fallout from his confrontations with senseless violence and death. Unlike many tragic post-Vietnam vet tales, this story soars with its upbeat message of perseverance over an anguished past.

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    Robert Fleming is a journalist in New York City.

    ©1997, ProMotion, inc.

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