Fingering the Jagged Grain : Tradition and Form in Recent Black Fiction

Byerman, Keith E.

ISBN 10: 0820307890 / ISBN 13: 9780820307893

Published by Athens, GA, U.S.A.: University of Georgia Press, 1986, 1986

About this Item

VG/VG. Clean ex-library. Library labels, stamps, envelope. Mylar sleeve glued to inside boards. Board edges lightly rubbed. Spine square, tight. Interior clean, bright. No marks. Good reading/research copy.

Seller Inventory # 8420

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Fingering the Jagged Grain : Tradition and Form in Recent Black Fiction
• Publisher: Athens, GA, U.S.A.: University of Georgia Press, 1986
• Publication Date: 1986
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0820307890
• ISBN 13: 9780820307893
• Binding: Hardcover
• Condition: Very Good
• Dust Jacket Condition: Dust Jacket Included
• Seller catalogs:
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About this title

Synopsis

In Fingering the Jagged Grain , Keith E. Byerman discusses how black writers such as Toni Morrison, Ishmael Reed, and Ernest Gaines have moved away from the ideological rigidity of the black arts movement that arose in the 1960s to create a more expressive, imaginative, and artistic fiction inspired by the example of Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man . Combining a strong concern for technique and craftsmanship with elements of African American heritage including jazz, blues, spirituals, cautionary tales, and voodoo, these writers have created a vital fiction that celebrates the strength and resilience of the black American voice as it recounts the painful details and brutal episodes of black experience.

Reviews

While black writers in the mid-1960s emphasized specific political and social goals, recent black fiction has concentrated on literary techniques. Byerman's book argues that this new fiction uses black folk culture both as content and as the basis for aesthetic form. For example, the folk culture encouraged inventive wordplay, and black writers frequently employ such liberated language as a challenge to those who would use fixed language as an analog to a fixed social order. Black folk culture often incorporated a repetitive call-and-response pattern. Recent black fiction displays a similar pattern: Plots move not to the resolution of a conflict but to its repetition in another version. Byerman provides detailed analyses of works by Ralph Ellison, Ernest Gaines, Alice Walker, Ishmael Reed, etc. Albert E. Wilhelm, English Dept., Tennessee Technological Univ., Cookeville
Copyright 1986 Reed Business Information, Inc.