Jim Dandy

Hollis Cleveland is a resourceful African American dealing with life in 1936--Harlem gangsters, the advancement of fascism and Nazism in Europe, the Italo-Ethiopian War--in a manner that raises moral questions about race, national interest, loyalty, and good and evil

When, in 1936, African American Harlem numbers-runner Hollis Cleveland double-crosses his wisecracking, cigar-chomping Jewish boss, he knows he's in trouble. So he assumes the alias of "Jim Dandy" (the name of a minstrel-show character he played as a boy in South Carolina) and absconds to Ethiopia to join the fight against Mussolini's invading troops. Faust's ( Willy Remembers ) first novel in 14 years is an engrossing, complex exploration of race relations, politics and the search for identity. Though a Canadian war correspondent dubs Hollis "a sepia Lawrence of Arabia," and though Emperor Haile Selassie begs him to continue his brave exploits, Hollis feels a racial divide between himself and the Ethiopians, who maintain that they "are not Negro." Faust has an unerring ear for dialogue and creates memorable characters, such as as African American pilot Maximilian Joseph, a former U.S. Army Air Corps general turned soldier of fortune who flies Hollis around Africa, and Sir Henry Armitage, a wealthy English protofascist crackpot who mistakes Hollis for an Ethiopian prince. Faust interpolates jazzy riffs on colonialism, race and history, and closes symbolically with Hollis, back in New York in 1938, deciding his next move even as heavyweight champ Joe Louis, the "Brown Bomber," knocks out "beetle-browed Hun" Max Schmeling.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Faust (Newsreel, 1980, etc.) returns to the novel after a 14- year hiatus in this impenetrable tale comprised of shards of dialogue and a fragmented plot. Hollis Cleveland, our hero, has a gift: ``He knew what people were thinking about him.'' It's good that someone knows what's happening; regrettably, it is rarely the reader. Cleveland is a black man surviving in 1930s Harlem by racketeering for local bigwig Sol Winograd. When their relationship sours, Cleveland, aka Jim Dandy, flees New York for London, where he meets soapboxing general Henry Armitage, who sponsors him to go to Ethiopia, which is being invaded by Mussolini's Fascists, with whom Cleveland voluntarily becomes entangled. It seems that everyone wants Cleveland on his side: the Italians, the Africans, and other unmemorables who've flown down to the fray. After a post-plane- crash schlep through the war-torn desert, Cleveland ends up in Addis Ababa, where he indulges in a luxury hotel room and elegant new clothes. Fate tosses him from Ethiopia to Liberia and eventually back to New York. Winograd reappears at the end, in a rare instance of continuity, to make Cleveland a job offer. All this is communicated through stagy, stilted dialogue (Uncle Tomspeak for the black characters at the start; the Queen's English, I say, for the Brits) and descriptive passages with more holes and extraneous matter than a dirty spaghetti strainer. Where readers are supposed to infer, they must instead guess, assume, and misunderstand what is going on until the dreary end. The chapters are broken by random and baffling ``Interludes''--A Scientific Interlude, An Historical Interlude, A Demented Interlude, etc. A Lucid Interlude and some coherent narrative passages would have been welcome. Attempting to read Jim Dandy is like trying to assemble and drive the rusty scraps of an abandoned junkyard jalopy. You're better off renting a wreck than trying to jump-start this lemon. -- Copyright ©1994, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

We first meet Hollis Cleveland, a.k.a. Jim Dandy, dancing in his father's minstrel revue in 1915. Fast forward to 1936, and the grown Cleveland is still in show business, college educated, fluent in four foreign languages, and on the run from his boss in a Harlem numbers-running organization. His flight takes him overseas, where he plunges into the turbulent atmosphere of rising fascism, the Spanish Civil War, and Mussolini's attempted grab of Ethiopia. Cleveland's sojourn in Africa and his return to the United States bring up troubling questions of nationalism, race, and identity. This novel of international intrigue by the author of Newsreel (1980) is a historical thriller set in one of the most volatile eras in the 20th century and features the most urbane hero this side of James Bond. Recommended for most fiction collections.
Dan Bogey, Clearfield Cty. P.L. Federation, Curwensville, Pa.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.