NO EASY PLACE TO BE

Corbin, Steven

ISBN 10: 0671658840 / ISBN 13: 9780671658847

Published by Simon & Schuster, NY, 1989

About this Item

443pp. White cloth spine with bright gilt title and black paper over boards. Pictorial Dust Jacket has crease in rear flap. . Author's first novel. Fiction.

Seller Inventory # 000865

Bibliographic Details

• Title: NO EASY PLACE TO BE
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster, NY
• Publication Date: 1989
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0671658840
• ISBN 13: 9780671658847
• Binding: Cloth
• Edition: 2nd Printing
• Condition: Near Fine
• Dust Jacket Condition: Very Good
• Book Type: Hardcover

About this title

Synopsis

Velma, Miriam, and Louise, three Black sisters living in New York during the Harlem Renaissance, are influenced by Langston Hughes, Marcus Garvey, and the Cotton Club

Reviews

Corbin's first novel is set in Harlem in the 1920s, during the period of black literary and artistic creation known as the Harlem Renaissance. He captures the fervor of post-World War I black optimism, contrasted by rampant racial bigotry, while chronicling the lives of three sisters: Velma, Barnard graduate and aspiring writer; Miriam, indefatigable activist for back-to-Africa nationalist Marcus Garvey; and Louise, whose fair skin leads her to the Cotton Club and show business. Corbin does well in delineating the black literary, entertainment and social worlds of the period, all the while detailing the fascination of white critics and wealthy patrons with the sudden emergence of the Negro artist. Writers from the era, such as Langston Hughes and Wallace Thurman, turn up briefly as characters. Corbin is not adept, however, at conveying the interaction between his characters. And while his dialogue is sometimes pointed and vivid, too often the writing is stilted and woefully cliched. An interesting but flawed treatment of a period of great social flux.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.

The Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s is the backdrop for this novel about three sisters. Miriam, the oldest, is a nurse with a deep commitment to Marcus Garvey's movement, and Louise, the youngest, who is so light she can "pass," becomes a dancer at the Cotton Club. Velma, on whom the novel centers, is a Barnard student and would-be writer. She becomes part of the New York literary world at a time when intellectual whites are discovering black writers and artists. The novel follows the careers and romances of the three sisters from the end of World War I to the beginning of the Depression. With such a rich background, it is a shame that Corbin, a first novelist, has written his story so woodenly that the characters and setting never fully come to life. A mildly interesting novel; buy to meet demand.Janet Boyarin Blundell, Brookdale Community Coll., Lincroft, N.J.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.