[ m o s a i c ] LITERARY MAGAZINE

JULIA deburgos
bruisedHIBISCUS
CARIBBEANwomen
WRITERS
wHiTe TEETH
sunday YOU LEARN
HOW TO BOX
MUHAMMAD ALI
LONG live the KING

SUMMER 2000 $4.00

[ summer 2000 / mosaic ] 1

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 [contents]

long live the king | 10

Books on Muhammad Ali
by Ron Kavanaugh

on the verge | 12
We interview three new novelists
who have written poignant books
dealing with race and sexuality.

Bernice McFadden | Sugar

by Pat Neblett
Myrlin Hermes | Careful What You Wish For
by Pamela R. Brown
Bil Wright | Sunday You Learn How To Box
by Nikki Terry

excerpts
Sugar | 15
Careful What You Wish For | 17
Sunday You Learn How To Box | 19

profile | 22
Julia de Burgos by Tracy Grant

essay | 28
Caribbean women writers
by Marcia Douglas

Cover
Brown Stone Blues II
by Francks Deceus

Muhammad Ali
The Birth of a Legend, Miami, 1961-1964
by Flip Schulke with Matt Schudel

mosaicliterarymagazine SUMMER 2000

[ summer 2000 / mosaic ] 3

 [ contents]

poetry | 20
Haiku by Lisette Norman
Black Woman by Jamila Harris
The Breakup: Chapter two by Jacqueline Jones LaMon

short story | 24
Kooraju by Pat Harewood

criticism | 30
Rone Shavers on the novel Tuff by Paul Beatty.

reviews | 32
All About Love: New Visions by bell hooks
The Black Rose: The Magnificent Story of Madam C.J. Walker,
America’s First Black Female Millionaire by Tananarive Due
Bruised Hibiscus by Elizabeth Nunez
Driving While Black:
What To Do If You Are A Victim of Racial Profiling by Kenneth Meeks
Father Found by R.M. Johnson
One Dead Preacher by Tony Lindsay
Soldier: A Poet’s Childhood by June Jordan
Whatever Happened To Daddy’s Little Girl:
The Impact of Fatherlessness On Black Women by Jonetta Rose Barras
White Teeth by Zadie Smith

the write stuff | 40

eBooks: by Maxine Thompson

4 [ mosaic / summer 2000 ] www.mosaicbooks.com

toby press ad

[ summer 2000 / mosaic ] 5

 [ m o s a i c ]
LITERARY MAGAZINE

VOLUME 3 NUMBER 2

RON KAVANAUGH Editor in Chief/Publisher EDITORIAL QUERIES & LETTERS

CYNTHIA RAY Managing Editor
DEATRA HAIME Reviews Editor
LYNNE d. JOHNSON Literature Editor
RONE SHAVERS Contributing Editor
Website: www.mosaicbooks.com
email: magazine@mosaicbooks.com
phone: (718) 432-1445
fax: (603) 761-8150
Printing Services: Expedi Printing NYC, NY
All correspondence should be sent to:
Mosaic Literary Magazine
314 W 231st St. / Suite 470
Bronx, NY 10463
email: magazine@mosaicbooks.com
fax (603) 761-8150
Mosaic Literary Magazine (ISSN 1531-0388) is
published four times per year by Mosaic Communications.
Content copyright © 2000 by Mosaic Communications.
Please do not send unsolicited fiction, nonfiction, poetry,
short stories or any other form of material for reprint in
Mosaic. It will not be considered or returned.

[editorial]

a long day’s journey

In the grand scheme of things two years is not a long time, but in the magazine world it’s a lifetime. Mosaic
celebrates its two year anniversary with this issue. During this short, yet eventful, journey we have grown,
transformed, stopped and started publishing and hopefully succeeded in bringing to our readers a constant
stream of interesting features, profiles, interviews and honest critiques of some of the more popular and not
so popular titles published today.

Few journeys are made alone. It has taken the time, effort, advice and sacrifice of many folks to keep Mosaic
going and growing over these past years. Lynne d. Johnson has been has been a constant since the birth of
Mosaic––before I knew exactly what this magazine would become I discussed my ideas with Lynne. My
former partner, Jacqueline (Jacob) Barrow, who joined soon after the magazine was launched helped guide
the business end through the first year. Taura Ottey, Michael and Ishmael Best, Deatra Haime, Tracy Grant,
Troy Johnson, Kalamu ya Salaam, Cynthia Ray, Nichole Shields, Rone Shavers, Jennifer Hunt and George
Aponte/Expedi Printing have all been very instrumental in the success of Mosaic.

There have been many others, too many to mention––all the writers, friends, family and “advisors.” All of
whom I owe a great deal of thanks to.

Others doubted I could start a magazine with no publishing experience. Some quietly, some not so quietly.
But I still tried and still believe anything is possible if you try.

Ron Kavanaugh
Publisher
Mosaic Literary Magazine
glenda taylor
success in men

take out “available

christmas 1999”
 [ c o n t r i b u t o r s ]
Pamela R. Brown is an editor and freelance writer
living in Maryland. She has been published in Dialogue
and The Arlington Courier.
Marcia Douglas was born in England and grew up in
Jamaica. She is the author of a novel, Madam Fate,
(Soho Press, 1999) and a poetry collection, Electricity
Comes to Cocoa Bottom, (Peepal Tree Press, 1999)
She teaches creative writing at North Carolina State
University, Raleigh.
Tracy Grant is the author of Hellified and is a con-
tributor to several magazines. His new novel, Deci-
sions, will be released this winter.
Deatra Haime lives in New York City and recently
made a new agreement to be a writer.
Kelly Haley is a Dayton, OH native. She spent twelve
years in the entertainment business as a music and
television publicist, before deciding to pursue her pas-
sion—writing. Currently, she is a freelance public rela-
tions writer and aspiring screenwriter living in Brook-
lyn, New York.
Patricia Harewood is a Caribbean-Canadian poet and
writer whose work has been published in newspapers
in St. John’s (Antigua), Montreal, Toronto, and Ottawa,
and in McGill University’s Heridan.
Jamila Harris is an English major at the University of
Kentucky.
Lynne d. Johnson is the literature editor of Mosaic.
She also writes about new media, technology, and en-
tertainment and is working on a book about hip hop
culture.
Mondella S. Jones is a native of sunny Los Angeles,
CA where she spent five years as a first grade teacher.
Currently, she is the assistant to the director of the new
8 [ mosaic / summer 2000 ]
Howard University Bookstore in Washington, D.C.
where she coordinates literary events.
Jacqueline Jones LaMon is a poet and playwright
residing in Southern California. Her poetry has been
published in The Drumming Between Us: Black Love
& Erotic Poetry; her play, Beyond Definition, has been
produced several times in Los Angeles County.
Ron Kavanaugh edits a magazine.
Pat Neblett is the author of Circles of Sisterhood : A
Book Discussion Group Guide for Women of Color.
Lisette Norman is a writer from Harlem, currently re-
siding in Staten Island, NY. She recently completed her
first collection of prose and poetry, my cup runs over.
R. Flowers Rivera completed her MA at Hollins Uni-
versity and her Ph.D. at Binghamton University. She is
an Assistant Professor of English at Northern Virginia
Community College–Alexandria. Her work can be
viewed at www.promethea.com.
Rone Shavers is a writer, editor, member of PEN Ameri-
can Center’s Open Book Program, and a contributing
editor to Mosaic.
Camika Spencer is the author of the bestseller, When
All Hell Breaks Loose and the forthcoming, Cubicles.
Her contributions can be read in Eclipse, Mosaic,
dallasblack.com and Our Texas.
Nikki Terry is a freelance writer living in Fort Greene,
Terry
Brooklyn. She also has the prettiest Rhodesian Ridge-
back in all the world.
Maxine E. Thompson is an award-winning writer.
She has self-published two novels, The Ebony Tree and
No Pockets in a Shroud, and a short story collection,
A Place Called Home.
www.mosaicbooks.com
About the cover artist

FRANCKS FRANCOIS DECEUS is one of the leading young

modern painters of his generation. He has garnered critical attention
for his innovative and passionate use of mixed medium and collage
on canvas. Victor Smite, curator for the Schomburg Center for Re-
search Into Black Culture remarked that Francks is ”a promising up
and coming artist, a painter whose work depicts a high degree of
sensitivity to social issues and his culture.”

His current collection includes the series, “Wheelbarrow People”

Do
and “Live from Paris”. “Wheelbarrow People” is based on a memory
of Francks’ childhood in Haiti. The characters in the paintings reflect
a combination of traditional African wood carvings and Haitian iron
sculptures. Francks’ goal is
to communicate the
struggle, strength and per-
severance of the Haitian
people and ultimately the
triumph of the human
spirit.
or
Brown Stone Blues II
36 x 46 mix medium on canvas
© 2000 Francks Deceus
Francks skillfully captures
the mood and the magic of
our lives and culture, lov-
ingly reminding us who we
are: mothers, fathers, chil-
dren, family. Through his
Die
A Mali Anderson Mystery
work, Francks seeks to “inspire humanity and humbleness in all of
us”. He continually creates magic with concepts that can be traced
specifically to his Haitian imagination, although he recognizes the
combination of the influences of his art education and painters who
GRACE F. EDWARDS
have come before him. Harlem’s supersleuth,
Mali Anderson is back!
Francks’ series “Live from Paris” is perhaps his most spirited work to
And she’s out to solve the
date. Inspired by a trip to Paris, he recaptures perfectly the music
murder of a singer in her
and spirit of Parisian night life. In this series of jazz related paintings,
Francks continues to build on his unique style of collage and further
fathers’s jazz band.
master his inspired use of color. The collage canvas may at time hold
anything: acrylics, oils, cloth or even something as unexpected as a With a consistent flair for
button. mystery writing, Grace
Edwards, the author of
Francks F. Deceus is a native of Haiti, currently residing in Brooklyn, NY. the bestselling book, No
Deceus Art Studio, 122 W ashington A
Washington ve. Brooklyn, NY 11205
Ave. Time to Die, takes us on
(718) 596-4229 another Mali Anderson
mystery ride.

IN STORES NOW
DOUBLEDAY BOOKS

[ summer 2000 / mosaic ] 9

 long
live America has always had it’s Black sports he-
roes; Jackie Robinson, Jesse Owens, Althea
Gibson, and Joe Louis, to name a few, but be-

the
fore the 1960s most of these heroes stayed
quiet on social issues. Rarely did they speak
out against racism, war, or social conditions in

king
BOOKS ON
America. As long as they “played along” the
media and fans would support these Black ath-
letes.

Then comes Ali. Young, brash, and fresh from

beating the Russians and winning a gold medal
MUHAMMAD ALI in the 1960 Olympics––standing on the po-
dium waving the American flag as the Star
Spangled Banner played in the background.
America had welcomed him with open arms.
by Ron Kavanaugh Things change.

Three books have attempted, with varying suc-

cess, to give us a glimpse of “The Greatest;”
Muhammad Ali Ringside, Compiled and Edited
by John Miller & Aaron Kenedi, Introduction by James Earl Jones , Muhammad
Ali: The Birth of A Legend, Miami, 1961-1964 by Flip Schulke with Matt Schudel
and Redemption Song: Muhammad Ali and the Spirit of the Sixties by Mike
Marqusee.

MUHAMMAD ALI RINGSIDE

The first books, Ringside and The Birth of A Legend, are for the most part coffee
table books with text, sometimes extensive, accompanying each picture. Ring-
side is full of stock photos and articles that one may have seen and read many
times over. What is relatively fresh is the use of Ali’s fight posters. Some of the
posters are reproduced in Ringside along with the actual tickets and other para-
phernalia, including an autographed x-ray of Ali’s broken jaw, taken after his
match against Ken Norton. Unfortunately Ringside has the feel of a book that
was put together quickly. All the books take us from Ali’s start in the 60s, but
unlike the other coffee table book, The Birth of A Legend , which concentrates
on a specific era, Ringside takes us all the way to the present, and that may be
the problem with this book. It never truly focuses enough time or photos to do
one era any justice. Ringside has photos accompanied by text and quotes from

1 0 [ mosaic / summer 2000 ] www.mosaicbooks.com

“notables” of the day. We have Leroi Jones commenting on Cassius Clay. “Clay is
not a fake, and even his blistering and playground poetry are valid; they demon-
strate that a new and more complicated generation has moved onto the scene...
Clay is definitely my man.” I longed to know what was omitted and replaced with
the ellipsis. Amiri Baraka (ne. Leroi Jones) has a way of breaking a topic down
and bringing it to a different level, but here we are given an edited quote that fits
perfectly into the allotted layout space. There are similar well intentioned quotes
by Jackie Robinson, Malcolm X, Jim Brown, Reggie Jackson and other luminaries.

The book is divided into chapters, each decade from the 60s through the 90s
representing a chapter, with each chapter “written” by a different author. Alex
Haley, “The 1960s;” Norman Mailer, “The 1970s;” Joyce Carol Oates, “The
1980s;” and Peter Richmond “The 1990s.” There are no new articles, all the
pieces are “reprinted with permission” from the original source. The one saving
grace in Ringside is “The 1960s” chapter in which Alex Haley interviews Cassius
Clay. Here, Clay gets a chance to give well thought out answers in his own words
and we get a vivid reminder of what a young Cassius Clay was actual like.

I’m sure the publisher felt its effort’s noble, but I get the feeling that since
Muhammad Ali is now an American icon––carrying the torch and lighting
the flame in the 1996 Olympics––they felt a certain comfort and took a
chance, capitalizing on the new “Ali-friendly” country.

MUHAMMAD ALI: THE BIRTH OF A LEGEND, MIAMI, 1961-1964

If photographs tell a thousand words you would assume we would be tired
of hearing Ali’s, but we are not. If you are like me, you still slow when you
see the photo of Ali, arms raised, over a defeated Sonny Liston. Or the same
Ali, defeated, slouched in his corner after his legendary fight with Joe Frazier.
But there are always more photos. Ali in the ring, outside the ring, in court, in
a mosque, training, suffering with Parkinson’s disease. So do we actually
need another book of Muhammad Ali photos? Yes.

Where Ringside fails, Muhammad Ali: The Birth of A Legend, Miami, 1961-
1964 succeeds. The first saving grace is its specificity to one place and time,
Redemption Song
the second is the photographer’s use of his own photos taken during three (top)
photo shoots in Miami, Florida. Photographer Flip Schulke captures a young Muhammad Ali:
Ringside (middle)
Cassius Clay when he was not the brightest star on the scene. Most of the
Muhammad Ali:
photos were taken at the Fifth Street Gym in Miami, while Ali was training for The Birth of A
his fight with Sonny Liston. (Continued on page 44) Legend (bottom)

[ summer 2000 / mosaic ] 1 1

 [ o n t h e v e r g e ]

IN THIS AGE OF FORMULA WRITING, WHERE EVERYTHING THAT

HAS SUCCEEDED IN THE PAST SHOULD BE REPEATED IN THE
FUTURE, THESE WRITERS BREAK OUT OF THE PACK. WITH PAS-
SION AND REALITY MYRLIN HERMES, BERNICE MCFADDEN,
AND BIL WRIGHT TACKLE SUBJECTS ON RACE, SEXUALITY,
RELIGION, ADULTERY, LOVE AND CRIME, AND SUCCEED
IN BRINGING FRESH VOICES TO THE LITERARY SCENE.

ndbodyandsouland
1 2 [ mosaic / summer 2000 ] www.mosaicbooks.com
 Bernice McFadden Bil Wright Myrlin Hermes

draceandsexandrel
[ summer 2000 / mosaic ] 1 3
 Bernice McFadden |Sugar
by Pat Neblett

Jude was dead

dead!
Thus begins McFadden’s engrossing, and superbly written debut novel, Sugar; the book that has
readers everywhere exclaiming…”Girlfriend, let me tell you ‘bout this book I just read!” Who is
the author of this excellent novel? Everyone’s asking just who is Bernice McFadden?

McFadden, from a warm, close-knit family, was born thirty-five years ago in Brooklyn, where she
has fond memories of hearing rich, colorful stories told by family elders about life in the South.
These stories, peppered with her own creative imagination were the seeds of thought McFadden
would use years later to conjure Sugar.

Written with the down-home folksiness of Hurston, the provocative thought of Walker, and the art
of the master story-weaver Morrison, Sugar is a book about a prostitute—one with a good heart
who says she must have been born with her two feet pointing backwards because, “Every time I
take one step forward, I go two steps back.” Spiked with suspense, Sugar is also about narrow-
minded women and hypocritical men in the small, dusty, fictionalized town of Bigelow, Arkansas.
It speaks to the power of sisterhood. But more importantly, Sugar is about love.

The book is laden with haunting lines such as “I ain’t bad Ms. Pearl, I just ain’t had no crossroads
in my life.” Crossroads, McFadden explained, are the opportunities one has to make a choice in
the path you’ll take in life. She confided that the decision not to give up on writing Sugar, despite
numerous rejections, was a crossroad in her life.

After years of writing poetry for her own enjoyment, McFadden honed her craft at Fordham Uni-
versity. She credits excellent creative writing teachers there with teaching her the art of storytelling
and encouraging her to push forward. In 1991, McFadden turned a negative situation into positive
one when laid off from her job in the travel planning industry. Having more time to read, she
(Continued on page 42)

religionandloveand
1 4 [ mosaic / summer 2000 ] www.mosaicbooks.com

Sugar
by Bernice McFadden
EP Dutton
Pearl was consuming her third glass of pike aid, and
wondering why the name began to sound familiar to
her. She thought hard and long about it, but could
not remember. She forced her attention on Sugar, who
was smoking a cigarette. For the first time she realized
that Sugar did not have on one of her many wigs. Her
head was tied with a rag. Her face was absent of
makeup, which was a rare occurrence. She looked
normal for once, even fresh. Her scantily clad body
seemed less threatening without all of the fixtures. In
this chaste state, Sugar looked more like Jude than
ever before. Pearl looked away and tried to consider
something else, but again her vision was drawn back
to Sugar. The cigarette smoke sailed over to her and
invaded her nose. She coughed a little and fanned it
away with her free hand.
“You need to stop that,” she said, her voice lagging
a bit.
“Stop what?” Sugar said.
“That smoking. You smoke too much and you don’t
wear enough clothes, either.” Pearl was speaking mat-
ter of factly, her tone was less than accusing, just tot-
tering on the verge of drunkenness.
Sugar, realizing this, just rolled her eyes and looked
back toward the fields.
“Gimmesomemore to drink.” Pearl’s words spilled
out like poor man’s pearls, strung together and worth-
less.
Sugar looked over at her, and realized by the way
Pearl was shoving the glass in her direction that she’d
probably had too much already.
dpainandmoralityan
[ e x c e r p t ]
“I think that might be it for you, Miss Pearl. How
about a Coke?” Sugar said, not moving.
Pearl set the glass down between her legs and leaned
her head back against the house. “Sugar, don’t it make
you feel ashamed when you take off your clothes for
everyone anti anyone?” Pearl asked, curiosity lacing
her voice.
“No,” Sugar said quickly and shifted her body. She
was uncomfortable, knowing what the questioning was
leading tip to.
“Umph,” Pearl grunted and shook her head.
“It ain’t no big deal. You take your clothes off in
front of Joe all the time. That don’t make you feel
shame, do it?” Sugar said, a bit sarcastically.
Pearl had never disrobed in front of Joe, in fact when
they made love, it was in the thick darkness of their
bedroom and her gown was simply lifted above her
waist. But that was so long ago; she had not been able
to perform that wifely duty since Jude’s death. It had
been fifteen long years of nothing more than caresses
and quick kisses, sleeping with even breath against a
neck and a hand settled into the curve of a waist. Joe
and Pearl simply shared a bed now and not each other.
Pearl did not respond.
“I feel free when I ain’t got no
clothes on,” Sugar continued.
“How does being naked make you
feel free?” Pearl sat up now, wanting
to understand Sugar’s words.
“I can’t explain it, Miss Pearl, it just
(Continued on page 46)
[ summer 2000 / mosaic ] 1 5
 Myrlin Hermes |Careful What You Wish For
by Pamela R. Brown
Careful What You Wish For opens with the return of a middle-aged Eleanor Blackmar to the small
southern town of her birth, Liberty. We are then transplanted back to 1949 to follow the story of
Eleanor as a young girl, woman, mother and wife and the transformation she experiences once
she encounters Natalie, a young mulatto woman who becomes her husband’s mistress and her
personal catalyst for change. Though the subject itself is not one that is foreign to the literary
world, it seems quite a weighty topic for a writer as young as Myrlin Hermes, a 23-year-old born in
California, then raised in both India and Hawaii, to tackle. Myrlin’s voice is filled with a youthful
enthusiasm and exuberance when discussing her debut novel, Careful What You Wish
For. However, her analytical nature and keen intelligence belie her years.

As a child, Hermes read “just about everything our local library’s small children’s section had”
from The Chronicles of Narnia to A Little Princess. Yet, she did not develop an interest in becom-
ing a writer until later in life. She did, however, “invent” elaborate scenarios for her friends to act
out with their dolls. In fact, Myrlin’s first love was the theater, which helps her in her writing by
letting her “get into the minds of her characters. “

She also draws inspiration from her favorite writers, “writers [who] share a love of rich lush lan-
guage”, such as Faulkner, Toni Morrison, and Gabriel Garcia-Marquez. There is often an element
of magical realism to [these authors].” One senses these elements in Hermes’ own novel with its
vivid descriptions that are surreal, seemingly magical events. Hermes feels that it is her “literary
experience” that influences her work just as much as her ”actual experience.” “After all of the
Faulkner and Morrison that I’ve read, I feel that a small southern town is not all that unfamiliar to
me,” she explains.

Yet one might ask how familiar a 23-year-old is with the experiences of a young mulatto woman,
Natalie, in a southern town such as the fictional setting of Liberty. Hermes is only one of many
(Continued on page 42)

andbodyandsoulan
1 6 [ mosaic / summer 2000 ] www.mosaicbooks.com

Careful What You Wish For
by Myrlin Hermes
Simon and Schuster
By the time they got home, Eleanor’s lipstick had
worn away except for a greedy-looking ring around
her mouth. And the hat looked ridiculous in her
mouse-brown hair, especially with that plain navy
dress she was wearing. No wonder they’d gotten looks
all the way through town-and Natalie, in that dress
that was barely a dress and her grandmother’s pearls!
It was all so stupid, so childish. Eleanor turned away
from the hall mirror and pulled the hat from her hair
“I expect supper will be late, now, too,” she said.
“What time is it? Five?”
“Not too late.” Natalie yawned happily, stretching
like a cat. “Sun’s still up.” When she had met Eleanor
in the train station, her clothes were disheveled and
her makeup smeared, but Eleanor couldn’t bring her-
self to ask whether Natalie had seduced that boy, that
child.
“No time for pie.” There were leftovers in the ice-
box. She could make a casserole. “It’s a pity, too, since
we have all of those cherries.”
“Cherries?” Natalie was suddenly alert. “I didn’t
know! If we have those, we won’t need anything else.”
Eleanor smiled. “In the fruit bowl.” Natalie bounded
ahead into the kitchen and by the time Eleanor
reached the door, she was already sitting on the
counter, spitting cherry pits into her hand. Eleanor put
on her yellow apron and washed her hands at the
sink. “Is that really all you want for supper?”
Natalie nodded vigorously. “Joey bought me a ham-
burger in town,” she said.
Joey? That boy?” She put a pot of water on the
ndraceandsexandre
[ e x c e r p t ]
stove. “He can’t be more than fifteen, you know.”
Natalie licked cherry juice off of her fingers. “Romeo
was fifteen,” she said.
“And I suppose he’s as true as Romeo, too.”
‘Bout like them all.” Natalie grinned. “As true as
Romeo to Rosaline.”
Eleanor gave her a look. Natalie was watching from
the corner of her eye to see if Eleanor got the joke.
They laughed together Natalie spit a cherry pit, which
fell short of Eleanor, landing on the kitchen floor
“Hey! None of that. I’ll never finish supper,” Eleanor
said, but her eyes were twinkling. She unwrapped the
leftover cold ham and began to dice it. “My grandfa-
ther had an old bound edition of those plays. It was
his mother’s. He used to read aloud to me.”
She smiled, remembering her grandfather’s finger
moving across the thin, wrinkled page. He did voices
for all of the characters, squeaking in falsetto for the
ingénues, sighing soulfully for the young lovers, and
even now Eleanor could hardly think of the balcony
scene without laughing. “I didn’t think anyone else in
this town read Shakespeare.”
Natalie shrugged. “I’ve been to college.”
Eleanor glanced up at her, unsure
whether to envy or disbelieve her “I
didn’t think most colleges allowed
colored girls,” she finally said.
Natalie had kicked off her shoes
and her white, white feet poked out
of the old black dress. She paused
(Continued on page 49)
[ summer 2000 / mosaic ] 1 7
 Bil Wright | Sunday You Learn How To Box
by Nikki Terry

Roy Jones, Jr. may be the best thing in boxing and Muhammad Ali will always be the greatest,
but in the world of literature Bil Wright is definitely a champion on the rise. With his stunning
debut novel, Sunday You Learn How To Box, Wright should definitely be crowned the baddest
bad-ass around.

Wright’s style is elegant and plainspoken, sprinkled with heartfelt imagination. Readers will
understand why he has provided a true knockout of a book. Doodling with yellow pads and
pencils since a child, Wright says, “I love telling a good story about people readers want to
come back to. There is something so simple, primitive even, about telling a good story and it is
enormously gratifying to have it appreciated by the [reader].”

Sunday You Learn How To Box is a novel about Louis Bowman, a 14-year-old boy who struggles
with his sexual existence, while coping with the social ills of a housing project in Connecticut.
Louis’ mother, Jeanette Stamps, yearns for a middle class life with a home of her own, and for
a son who will “act” like other boys his age––in this quest Jeanette enlist Louis’ stepfather, Ben.
He initially ignores his wife’s desires, but finally consents to her demands that he give Louis
boxing lessons every Sunday, thus the title of the book. Along the way, Louis must deal with his
romantic crush on the neighborhood tuff, an encounter with a stranger on the train, weekends
spent with his grandfather in Harlem and ostracism from neighborhood kids.
Having been influenced by his guardian angels James Baldwin, Tony Kushner and Lorraine
Hansberry, one of the first effects you will notice about Wright’s style is the marvelous job he
does of making his characters clear and fresh. “What inspired me to write Sunday was a spirit
from something beyond,” says Wright. Hoping to capture the bond between a mother and
son, and at the same time create a story that explores the soul of a young boy’s sexuality,
(Continued on page 42)

religionandloveand
1 8 [ mosaic / summer 2000 ] www.mosaicbooks.com

Sunday You Learn How To Box
by Bil Wright
Simon and Schuster
The next morning I took the bike outside and down
to the other end of the projects where it would be
harder for Mom to see me from the window, or even
the stoop. The day before had been humiliating, but it
had shown me something after all. I’d watched boys
of all different sizes and shapes ride my bike, some of
whom I knew were as old as I was and couldn’t read
or count. I understood the secret had to be in prac-
tice, not in intelligence. Now, I was determined.
When I got tired of falling, I decided to hide out
behind the bushes awhile to rest. Even though there
weren’t any leaves on them, they were too dense for
anyone to see me. When I pushed the bike through to
the other side, Ray Anthony Robinson was standing
behind the bushes, peeing and smoking a cigarette.
Ray Anthony lived across the courtyard with his
mother in the 4B apartment building next to where
we’d lived in 4A before we moved to the bungalows.
Nobody was really sure how old Ray Anthony was,
but Miss Helen, Mom’s hairdresser, said she thought
he had to be seventeen at least. He didn’t go to high
school and by law, you had to go until you were six-
teen. Miss Helen said nobody she knew could remem-
ber a time when Ray Anthony had ever gone to school,
but she was sure he must have. She whispered to my
mother that Ray Anthony was “an out-and-out hood-
lum.” Miss Helen was always calling somebody’s child
a hoodlum, but I could tell from the way she said it
that to be an “out-and-out hoodlum” was more seri-
ous than an ordinary run-of-the-mill hoodlum. So I
stared at Ray Anthony after that from my window won-
dpainandmoralityan
[ e x c e r p t ]
dering what kind of crimes he might be on his way to
commit.
When I pushed through the bushes to Ray Anthony
Robinson standing there peeing and smoking, it felt
like I’d pushed through to the other side of the world.
He turned in my direction and aimed right through
the spokes of my front tire. My eyes followed the arc
back to where it came from, Ray Anthony Robinson’s
dick. It was long, wide and the color of these cookies
Miss Odessa used to give me for dessert when I spent
the night. Almond Macaroons. Most likely, Ray An-
thony was the color of Almond Macaroons all over,
but I’d never thought about it until I saw his dick. The
way he looked at me, with his cigarette hanging from
his lips and his waist pushed forward at me, you’d have
thought it was the most natural thing in the world for
us to be there, him peeing and me watching.
When he stopped peeing, he didn’t put his dick
back in his pants. He spat the cigarette in my direc-
tion, but he wasn’t trying to hit me with it. He started
peeing again, aiming at his cigarette until the smoke
stopped spiraling up from it. I tried not to look im-
pressed.
“Who gave you the girl’s bike for
Christmas?”
“It’s not a girl’s.” It was hard to
sound as forceful as I wanted, watch-
ing him slowly tuck himself back into
his pants.
“You gonna let me ride it?”
(Continued on page 48)
[ summer 2000 / mosaic ] 1 9
 Haiku
By Lisette Norman

your tongue slides up my

thigh, leaving most of what god
gives you on my skin

2 0 [ mosaic / summer 2000 ] www.mosaicbooks.com

 the breakup
chapter two
by Jacqueline Jones LaMon

asses shift
hands wringing sweaty crying knowing hands
nails tapping butcher block surfaces
worn with scars and shallow trenches
disturbing the pepper
annoying the salt
breath heavy upon unbreathed breath
eyes lowered
empty dark and dripping
your lips are quivering, baby
Black Woman your lips remembering her lips
and tongue and teeth and
By Jamila Harris curly moist and fragrant hairs
so shamed and so fulfilled
We hard rock there is no other path around this piercing
Color pencil we chat about the job and weather
sharp-in yo’ face my fingers reach to touch your fingers
pu nanny whippin’ your fingers flinch then pull away
scented you scratch your head
in stream of unique releasing a memory embedded
collective awareness behind the ear in which she last left whispers
knit together and convulse involuntarily while you think
like hand-weaved netting of the second hour taste
sifting of digits on your right hand
sailing through waters LOOK A ATT ME
catch i am not going to make this easy for you
bones bottomed shore not going to pat your back
only to pass through or shake that hand
in-out-of not giving you a box lunch and carfare
pattern not going to run the tape
graciously inherit the right to birth WE CAN ALWAYS BE FRIENDS
creativity WE CAN ALWAYS BE FRIENDS
oozing out of WE CAN ALWAYS BE FRIENDS
pens-mouth i mean
fingertips-drums just how many times
shake-a-ray queens are you going to leave me
shake-a-ray the loose ends before i have been left
throw the cords
indeed…
of life
and reel in the
prostitutes
cracked heads
jailed birds
breathe life into the dead eye
we need only to whisper/close
ears are formed open

[ summer 2000 / mosaic ] 2 1

[ p r o f i l e ]

JULIA de BURGOS

undying
spirit
by Tracy Grant

2 2 [ mosaic / summer 2000 ] www.mosaicbooks.com

Here at the opening of the 21st century, we live in a
word rich with cultural diversity. In literature, just as
in other mediums, the most memorable work often
comes when creativity blends with keen social, and
sometimes political, observations on the part of the
writer. Masterful examples can be found in the work
of Walter Mosley, who draws from within to depict
black American life, or Arthur Golden, whose Mem-
oirs of a Geisha provides insight into a seldom seen
part of Japanese culture. The poet who can be added
to this list is the late Julia de Burgos, if for no other
reason than for the manner in which her work and
her life challenged the conventions of her surround-
ings. As a woman, she was constrained by the social
ills of her native Puerto Rico. Writing from the 1930s
to the 1950s, she lacked the outlets available to a
Hispanic poet today. However, awareness of this bard
has spread far past her native country, and the spirit
of a unique poet is becoming more evident.
Julia de Burgos was born in Puerto Rico in 1914, the
oldest of 13 children, six of whom died as children.
When the Depression began, her family was dispos-
sessed of their land, but Julia found herself at the
University of Puerto Rico at the age of 17. She briefly
taught school after college, but soon became active
in the movement toward Puerto Rican indepen-
dence. Her poetry spoke to all of the causes she
found important; much of it is political in nature,
sometimes feminist, sometimes introspective, de-
scribing her romantic misfortunes. She has been
called the most important Puerto Rican poet of her
time, yet for years she was unknown outside of aca-
demic circles. Though she wrote over 200 poems,
her work drew little compensation, and her activism
left her with little support in New York City, where she
later moved. Toward the end of her life, she struggled
with substance abuse and died penniless at 39 years
old.
Today, de Burgos is finding notoriety she should have
received decades ago. Her legacy is being kept alive
through collections of her poetry that translators have
provided in English along with the original Spanish
versions. The most notable is Song of the Simple Truth:
The Complete Poems of Julia de Burgos (Curbstone
Press), translated by poet Jack Agueros. Agueros pro-
vides dual language versions of all of de Burgos’ work,
including ”The Voices Of The Dead: In China,” “Ay,
Ay, Ay Of The Kinky-haired Negress,” ”Between My
Voice And Time,” ”Poem For My Death,” “Canto To
The Free Federation,” “Long Live The Republic! Down
With The Assassins,” and many others. In Spanish Har-
lem, there is now the Julia de Burgos Cultural Center,
where young people and tourists alike can read and
learn about the poet. Similar cultural centers are ap-
pearing in other cities, helping to expose de Burgos’
poetry beyond the Hispanic community and the se-
lect college classroom. As a contemporary of the Latin
American literary scene in 1940s Cuba, she surely
would have had some perspective to offer regarding
Elian Gonzalez and the struggles of the boy’s family
on U.S. soil.
Sadly, de Burgos was very much ahead of her time. As
her work becomes more available to all audiences,
so, too, will her spirit touch everyone who enjoys pas-
sionate poetry, crafted from a woman, who, like all of
us, faced a number of challenging internal and exter-
nal issues throughout her life. ★
[ summer 2000 / mosaic ] 2 3
[ s h o r t s t o r y ]

KOORAjU by Pat Harewood

I imagined him before he came. Sun-rusted hair locked out of pride and remembrance. His locks upright calling
most to label him “eccentric.” Kooraju was his real name.
I exalted in his presence. It was as if I found someone who, like me, had been waiting to make that connec-
tion. You know, like a soul mate from another lifetime. Someone who remembers where your moods come
from. His temperament was tart-sweet, like a mango crushed in your mouth, sliding down your throat making
you give thanks that you have lived to taste the fruits of another season.
But those days have passed on now. He too. Gone to another place where you can rest your head without
hearing those cars race by on the main road.

“Come and taste this,” he said, handing me a root of ginger he had picked up from the market. He was by the
fireside preparing our meal dressed in the very same clothes he had on when, through his mother’s legs, he re-
entered this world. I took a very small bite and contorting my face, quickly spat it out in my hand.
“So much for ginger curry... Lord have mercy! With all those pesticides they’ve put in the earth, they just
don’t make ginger taste the way it used to,” he lamented.
When he spoke like that, I always wondered about his age. He had told me seventy-two seasons, which I
worked out to be thirty-six years. But, there was something acutely ancient about his gaze, something which
took you back to the days of reciprocity, respecting elders and the rolling drumbeats of home.
When we first met in the shop, he had spoken, not as though he was reading my nametag for the first time,

2 4 [ mosaic / summer 2000 ] www.mosaicbooks.com

but as though he had remembered me.
“Give thanks for this reconnection... Jahmilka is an
unfocused sister but undeniably generous and gutsy.
Thanks for covering for me in front of the slave mas-
ter,” he began.
I wanted to respond with the same conviction but
had hidden that passion so deep inside that I could
no longer find it when I needed it most.
“No problem man. Just be careful where you
smoke. Now, can I help you with some incense?”
I had been working at a new age smoke shop in
the city, which sold tobacco and healing incense to
tourists. The owner was a Swiss doctor who had
opened the shop as an addendum to her practice. I
managed it and she came by once a week to pick up
the sales and restock. He had come into the shop
smoking from a pipe when the owner walked in, took
one look at him and complained to me that she, “smelt
marijuana.” I told her that it was a combination of all
the incense I had been burning that day. She accepted
the answer as satisfactory, collected the sales and rushed
back to her office.
“No, I don’t need the IN SENSE because I’ve got the
balance outside and in. It’s more holistic, you dig?” he
cajoled approaching me in front of the counter.
“I just came to ask you when you will have time to
reason. I mean, is the owner always in your face or can
you ever just relax and talk to potential customers?’
He laughed when I told him later how I had found
him too forward. While massaging my aching shoul-
ders, he told me that he was just addicted to my truth.
No approach would have been right anyway because I
had become so disconnected from self, he said. Any
man wanting to talk to a strange woman in this society
is believed to be trying to “pick up” and I would have
just flowed with the stereotype.
Soon he was coming by the shop once a week with
(Continued on page 45)
[ summer 2000 / mosaic ] 2 5
 JUST THE FACTS, ABOUT OUR READERS

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MOSAIC HAS INTERVIEWED SONIA SANCHEZ, E. LYNN HARRIS,
ERIC JEROME DICKEY, JESSICA CARE MOORE, NALO HOPKINSON,
asha bandele, FARAI CHIDEYA, KEVIN POWELL, WILLIE PERDOMO,
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MANY OTHERS. SOME OF OUR FEATURES HAVE INCLUDED EBONICS,
GAYL JONES, SPOKEN WORD, AND THE HARLEM WRITERS GUILD

[ summer 2000 / mosaic ] 2 7

 [ e s s a y ]
caribbean women writing
at the frontier
In the late 1980s, upon learning about a forthcom-
ing conference profiling the work of Caribbean
women writers, Jamaica Kincaid asked, “Are there
many of us?” The conference was the 1988 First In-
ternational Conference of Caribbean Women Writ-
ers at Wellesley College, Wellesley, MA—an histori-
cal event which brought together women writers from
all over the Caribbean, providing a forum for many
of them to meet each other and discuss their work
as a group for the first time.
With the emergence of writers such as Opal Adisa
Palmer, Olive Senior, Erna Brodber, Zee Edgell,
Dionne Brand, Marlene Nourbese Philip and
Michelle Cliff, during the 1980s, the volume of writ-
ing being published by Caribbean women had grown;
so much so that in the introduction to their 1989
anthology, Her True-True Name, Pamela Mordecai
and Betty Wilson would question, “whether these
women had been writing much before that time and
therefore whether what appears to be a sudden lit-
erary blossoming may not, at least in part, be a flow-
ering of publishing interest consequent on the
Women’s Movement and the improved economic
status of women, making them a market to be reck-
oned with.”
There are no simple answers to the question posited
by Mordecai and Wilson. I do know, however, that
2 8 [ mosaic / summer 2000 ]
by Marcia Douglas
Caribbean women have always written, albeit at the
kitchen table. The publishing industry, driven by po-
litical and economic concerns is constantly shining
and it has been a struggle to have our voices heard
at all. Still, each generation of writers has paved the
way for a new generation of talent to follow, each
of us standing on another’s shoulders. Gradually,
we have gained confidence, gathered momentum,
reclaimed our voices, become a chorus.
The chorus was humming, when, in 1990, as a
graduate student at Ohio State University, I went in
search of other Caribbean women writers. I had re-
cently made the decision to drop out of my Pre-
ventive Medicine program and direct my energy to-
ward writing poems and stories instead. My family
and friends doubted the wisdom behind my choice.
But I needed to be validated and was hungry for
other Jamaican women like myself, who had taken
the writing path. Where were they? The bookstores
had very little, but I finally found a few shelves in
the campus library where the hum became louder
and when, hallelujah, I opened Opal Palmer Adisa’s
Bake Face and other Guava Stories, her pages broke
out in tongues. I sat there reading on the concrete
floor for hours. Here was a voice that gave author-
ity to my own. And there were others—Merle
Hodge’s Crick Crack Monkey, and Myriam Warner-
Vieyra’s Juletane.
www.mosaicbooks.com
But why weren’t many of these writers available in
bookstores? Traditionally, the United Kingdom and
to a lesser extent, Canada, have acted as centers for
the publication of Caribbean writing. Britain has
been welcome and fertile ground for these writers,
nevertheless, there is a sense that many have be-
come locked in the “Caribbean Series” of large pub-
lishing houses such as Longman and Heinmann.
These series have served as pigeonholes and many
talented writers have not always received the expo-
sure they deserve, their work never crossing the At-
lantic. There is also the fact that regardless of which
shore we are published on, serious critical attention
to Caribbean women writers has tended to focus
on a select few.
Still, this is gradually changing—simultaneous to the
emergence of the creative writers, there has also been
growth in the number of scholars. Here, the out-
standing work of critics such as Carole Boyce Davies,
Carolyn Cooper and Vévé Clark comes to mind. An-
other turning point came in 1995 when the Asso-
ciation of Caribbean Women Writers and Scholars
was formed—an organization which celebrates Car-
ibbean writers and fosters critical scholarship in the
field. Furthermore, in the 1990s, for the first time,
we saw a new development with an increased num-
ber of works by Caribbean women being published
in the United States, the latest wave including writ-
ers such as Edwidge Danticat, Patricia Powell, Mar-
garet Cezaire-Thompson and Nalo Hopkinson.
So there I was sitting on the floor of the library, the
voices gathering strength—Michelle Cliff’s Abeng,
Olive Senior’s Summer Lightning, ushering me in—I
knew I was in good company. Later, as I worked on
the manuscript of what would become my novel,
Madam Fate, I covered my walls with photos of these
literary mothers. I wanted them there to stare me in
the eye, challenge me to be more, do better—the
look every no-nonsense island mother gives to her
daughter.
“Are there many of us?” Each year, Jamaica Kincaid’s
question continues to be answered with both new
names and the rebirth of old ones being added to
the roster. Still, we have a long way to go. Inspired by
the work of one of my mothers, Marlene Nourbese
Philip, I like to think of Caribbean women writers as
at a frontier. Redefining “margin” space as “frontier”
space, Philip suggests that “marginality is in the eyes
of the beholder. The margin, she reminds us, is a space
of silence and inaction, while the frontier is the site
of activity and battle. As an Afro-Caribbean writer,
this functions as a very useful and empowering per-
spective, reminding me that when all is said and done,
we flower because we persist in flowering and we
write because we must write. ★
[ summer 2000 / mosaic ] 2 9
[ c r i t i c i s m ]
stay tuff ON PAUL BEATTY’S WORK
by Rone Shavers
Now, given the nature and tendency towards politi-
cizing even the blandest aspects of African American
fiction, Paul Beatty’s Tuff is about as baited as books
come. Only because its location is East Harlem, the
protagonist a young African American male who is
obviously “at risk“— actually, only because the novel’s
author is black (and unfortunately, that fact is more
than enough to serve as its own political statement in
its own right), Tuff’s average reader will do more than
expect racial polemic to drip from its pages, he or she
will want it, expect it even, desire to see a tedious,
chest-thumping African American righteousness
spelled out and screaming across every other line.
Yet, unlike other readers and reviewers, I come not to
bury Beatty, but to praise him for his efforts. That is,
for branching out. A fictional work deserves to be
judged according to its literary merit, not its political
implications, and simply by giving voice to characters
who can be defined in political terms as “marginal“ at
best, Beatty has done more than enough to fulfill his
racial obligations to whomever would deign to need
them. In regards to the struggles of black folk, the tale
and character of Winston Foshay is about as apathetic
as they can possibly come, but that should not neces-
sarily be viewed as a bad thing. In some ways, Beatty’s
novel must be read as pastiche, picaresque; intention-
ally written not to make the world a better place
3 0 [ mosaic / summer 2000 ]
through the author’s spewing an idealized vision of
how things should be, but simply as a work which
opens up an avenue of identification onto the world
of disenfranchised youth. Those who read to expect
something more, those who desire that Beatty articu-
late their rage and resentment should look elsewhere.
Better still, they should write their own novels, inclu-
sive of their own agendas.
How responsible is a fiction author to, and for, his
work? Ultimately, he or she is only responsible to his
work, to letting his characters breathe and live, speak
and interact according to their own desires and whims.
The work is a birth to be nurtured, not the outside
environment in which it lives. I say outside environ-
ment to mean reality, the world around the writer and
often outside his or her sphere of influence. That is,
unless a novelist begins a writing career already rich,
famous, politically connected, or some bizarre com-
bination of the above, he or she can initially do little.
To assume that the novelist should be held account-
able for the potential dialogue his work engenders is
not only asinine, but to use to old philistine idiom, it
makes an ass out of you and me. Please, leave the
province of immediate politics to the poets, where it
belongs.
Like fashion, politics is fleeting, and Beatty should in
www.mosaicbooks.com
no way be held responsible for what one reads into
his work. To ask him to do so devalues individual re-
sponse, the very notion that reading can be an inti-
mate, personal act. I believe Beatty only created a
world in which one recognizes that the differences
between Tuffy and the reader are cosmetic at best. To
rest as reductive as possible about it, Tuffy is human,
and although we as a species may not share every in-
terest, we all have common interests that link us to-
gether. To demand, as other critics have done, that
Beatty use even one fraction of the so-called “black
experience“ to denounce some and uplift other seg-
ments of the population not only belittles this black
experience, but wholly commodifies it; rips any sort
of variegation from its nature and places it solely in
one particular, standard little box. How many novels
must we read—must we write—before we get over
the tepid sentiments of: “We are poor, we are unjustly
jailed, we are constantly discriminated against, and woe
is me“? Such a view is extremely outdated, if only due
to the fact that the truths to be found in such a state-
ment have lost all power; its potency spent through
constant use, its case horribly oversimplified. And as
only one of a bevy of black writers writing today,
shouldn’t Beatty be allowed to write something other
than this selfsame notion, this rote party line that ev-
eryone seems to already know? Shouldn’t there exist
something more?
In response to the
view of Beatty’s
novel as an at-
tempt to write
from “the hood, “
one can only cry
foul. Such a read-
ing of Tuff, while
possibly well in-
tentioned, shows
an absolute mis-
understanding and crass belittling of the many forms
of fiction and all that fiction itself can accomplish. In a
previous review, I described Tuff an “urban
picaresque.” It was described as such because it is a
picaresque: A phrase originally used to describe me-
dieval Spanish novels (for example, Cervantes’ Don
Quixote), novels which were free-flowing, ribald, and
tongue-in-cheek, serving no greater purpose other than
to illustrate the exploits of the “common“ man. The
same can be said of Tuff. Beatty is not responsible for
your political views, and neither is he responsible for
the world around him. He can only seek, create, and
present his own, alternative view. His work reflects that,
his characters reflect that, and his themes and tropes
prove it with ridiculous consistency. So then, why be
upset because an author refuses to reinforce attitudes
and information you already have and know? ★
[ summer 2000 / mosaic ] 3 1
[ r e v i e w s ]

All About Love: New Visions

Visions
By bell hooks
William Morrow
Reviewed by Deatra Haime

Reading a work by bell hooks is like taking a trek up a

vaguely forbidding but promising mountain. She’s keenly
critical and works diligently to illuminate every aspect of
a subject matter, leaving very little room for other possi-
bility. In her new book, All About Love: New Visions,
she brings love into focus and attempts to give substan-
tial meaning to the often elusive but universally desired
emotion. Ultimately, she demands a new consciousness
in our orientation from the conventional romantic hooey.
This book, she says “... provides radical new ways to
think about the art of loving, offering a hopeful, joyous
vision of love’s transformative power.”
hooks’ main ideas center around a call to experience
love as an act rather than as an emotion. She begins by
borrowing a definition from the writer M. Scott Peck in
his book, The Road Less Traveled, Love is “the willing-
ness to extend one’s self for the purpose of nurturing
one’s own or another’s spiritual growth.” Keenly aware
of the vast change in realization required to live this defi-
nition, hooks painstakingly attempts to argue the benefit
of loving as spiritual practice.
Her method is to contextualize love (e.g., lessons we
learn in childhood, the necessity for honesty, the mean-
ing of self love, love as a value system, etc.), deconstruct
the myths and offer examples—mostly from her own ex-
perience—of how the honest, conscious practice of love
can both heal and transform. hooks also focuses a great
deal of attention on the effects of patriarchy on our con-
cepts of what it means to be loving and explains, “A com-

Butterfly graphic from the bookcover

All About Love by bell hooks, William Morrow
3 2 [ mosaic / summer 2000 ] www.mosaicbooks.com
monly accepted assumption in a patriarchal
culture is that love can be present in a situa-
tion where one group or individual dominates
another.” She then stridently argues against
this idea and repeatedly suggests that men,
even more than women, need to deconstruct
and rebuild their concepts of love.
Though hooks’ vision of love is magnifi-
cent, one of the problems with All About
Love: New Visions is that, as a guidebook, it
lacks realistic methods and seems mired in
theory rather than practice. For example,
hooks is childless yet devotes an entire sec-
tion on how to be a genuinely loving parent,
especially when it comes to discipline. Her
suggestions reflect an ideal but lack a practi-
cality that comes from experience. Even more
importantly, she speaks of her own enlight-
enment from a place of resolution rather than
sharing the struggle of how she was able to
evolve past the ways she was indoctrinated
into false perceptions and practices of love.
By representing herself as a finished product
rather than a work-in-progress, she offers little
emotional inspiration to attempt change.
As is often the case with hooks’ work, her
ideas languish in a level of intellectualism that
is ineffective if her intent is to mobilize the
masses. Her audience may very well be the
proverbial “talented tenth” who requires a
kind of trickle-down theory of dissemination.
She seems unwilling to share her vision with
folks who can’t stand on the intellectual
ground she stakes — which is unfortunate.
The fundamental problem with hooks’
“new vision” is that she writes from a place
of hope and longing, creating a new love or-
der that seems utopian rather than modern-
day focused. The meditative nature of her
work leaves an impression of “some day”
rather than an inspiring call to action that de-
mands immediate movement and commit-
ment to change.
Driving While Black:
What to Do If Y ou Are A V
You ictim Of
Victim
Racial Profiling
By K enneth Meeks
Kenneth
Broadway Books
Reviewed by K elly Haley
Kelly
Racial profiling is the subject of a new
book by Kenneth Meeks, a veteran journal-
ist and managing editor at Black Enterprise
magazine. Driving While Black: What To Do
If You Are A Victim Of Racial Profiling is
timely in its publication, as this illegal but
regularly used method of crime control is
making headlines—the Patrick Dorismond
and Amadou Diallo fatal police shootings
in New York City are two of the most re-
cent incidents.
Meeks defines racial profiling as “The tac-
tic of stopping someone only because of
the color of his or her skin and a fleeting
suspicion that the person is engaging in
criminal behavior.” It is not uncommon to
see young African- American men pulled
over by police and spread against their
cars—it’s a way of life for people of color
and this book strives to be a tool to combat
this age-old problem.
Divided into two parts, Driving While
Black begins by focusing on this definition
and how it is used on a regular basis in crime
prevention among law enforcement agen-
cies. Meeks also illustrates how the prac-
tice of racial profiling plays an integral role
in African-Americans’ everyday live. Citing
over a dozen examples, ranging from a 1959
incident where a boy was accused by po-
lice of stealing his own bike, to a young
black woman being subjected to a full body
search at an airport customs office for no
other reason than her “type” fit the profile
of drug smugglers (i.e. black and female).
Further examples include situations involv-
[ summer 2000 / mosaic ] 3 3
 ing taxicab drivers, store clerks and basket-
ball players and illustrate just how entrenched
the practice is in the United States.
Part two offers investigations of various re-
ports, mandates—including the federal
government’s measures to stop the practice—
news headlines, the Bill of Rights and relevant
amendments to the Constitution. It also of-
fers the names and addresses of organizations
that can assist victims with seeking advice and
guidance in fighting back, including form let-
ters to be sent to government representatives
as well as examples of complaint letters.
Driving While Black is chock full of vital
information, but the reader has to work hard
to get through the extra clutter and redun-
dancy in order to find the most critical—spe-
cifically, what are a person’s rights, what con-
stitutes a violation of those rights, and finally,
what can be done when those rights are vio-
lated. Meeks set a tall order for himself in
tackling such an intricate issue. And to his
credit, the research is impeccable, but some-
where along the line, in trying to get this book
out while the issue of racial profiling is at the
forefront of public debate, he neglects to
present his information in an organized and
usable manner. It is, however, worth weed-
ing through, especially if one is in need of
the resources he’s assembled.
Bruised Hibiscus
by Elizabeth Nunez
Seal Press
Reviewed by Camika Spencer
A classic novel, Bruised Hibiscus is a book
that eloquently fuses the lives of two women
tied by love and fear. Taking place in the small,
post- colonial, Trinidad village of Otahiti,
Bruised Hibiscus introduces us to Zuela, a
Hispanic, deep toned, young mother of ten,
who is married to an opium-addicted, Chi-
3 4 [ mosaic / summer 2000 ]
nese immigrant three times her senior, and
Rosa, a White woman, married to a Black
school headmaster who is paranoid that a
faithful Rosa is having an extramarital affair
and that she is also trying to kill him. Both
women ache to be free from the physical,
mental and economic abuse their husbands
dish out.
As adolescents, Zuela and Rosa witnessed
a gruesome act as they hid behind a hibis-
cus bush. In shame, both promise to never
speak a word of what they saw as their lives
take separate paths, but a similar act, over
two decades later (a woman’s body found
gutted and defaced) brings the two intricate
women back to each other through the
memory and upsurge of emotions and cir-
cumstance. As the town of Otahiti attempts
to obtain answers for the murders, readers
will discover that the town not only suffers
from man’s oppressive viciousness against
women, but that the post-colonial town, is
dictated by the separation of class and race
on many levels. From a mother’s standpoint,
Zuela finds herself only brave when her
children’s lives come into question and she
struggles to have the same strength for her-
self, while Rosa dreamily fantasizes about her
husband’s death with no intentions of actu-
ally killing him. The pages of Bruised Hibis-
cus swell with the degradation of it’s char-
acters, yet allows them to create a founda-
tion upon the rocky grounds in which they
live, a voice reminiscent of Alice Walker’s
Possessing the Secret of Joy.
The disappointing aspect of Bruised Hi-
biscus is that the story is sometimes crippled
with an abundance of metaphoric descrip-
tion in moments when the reader simply
wants to keep the momentum of action and
dialogue. It’s like sitting by a campfire lis-
tening to an elder tell three stories within one
to make a point, but even this little complaint
www.mosaicbooks.com
is not enough to abandon Bruised Hibiscus.
It is that enthralling.
Without giving away the story or the plot
of the book, the reader must know that the
journey of Rosa and Zuela is one that isn’t
always easy to swallow, and at times it’s
highly emotional and frequently relegates the
reader to saying things out loud either in pro-
test or support. Complex but revealing ,
Bruised Hibiscus is a waterfall of truth that
has to be dug from beneath lies, distrust and
deceit. Elizabeth Nunez has managed to
write a beautiful story from beginning to end
that reminds the reader how powerful and
valuable memory is. It’s sensitive subject
matter has been mastered by the author and
in line with When Rocks Dance and Beyond
the Limbo Silence, Nunez has brought the
past and present spirit of Trinidad to life with
brilliance, vivid imagery and tact. From her
heart, Elizabeth Nunez has created another
master work of literature.
One Dead Preacher
by Tony Lindsay
Tony
BlackW ords Inc.
BlackWords
Reviewed by Kimberly Burgess
Don’t judge this book by its title. Tony
Lindsay’s urban mystery, One Dead Preacher
is far from trite. The story introduces us to
David Price, CEO and agent in his own se-
curity firm, as he creeps through the hard-
knock Chicago hood in his pearl white eight
cylinder ’96 Fleetwood Brougham Cadillac
to visit Ricky, a childhood friend, at one of
his many business establishments—one of
which is a gambling ring.
Surrounded in a game of craps by the
young thugs Ricky routinely attempts to con-
vert to a legal life, among them hustlers, gam-
blers, and drunks, Price accidentally grabs
hold of Sugar Greer’s thick legs in excitement
of winning. Ironically, she was also trying to
get his attention. She needed his help. Ricky
had said he had a job for him, only he didn’t
know it had anything to do with Sugar Greer,
or protecting her from her ex-husband. Pro-
tecting Greer seems simple until Price learns
that Greer’s ex-husband is Brother Yazz,
leader of the local Black cult, The New Day
Brothers, and supposed head of a well-con-
nected jewel theft ring.
Brother Yazz’s influence reaches across
the Chicago ghetto from drug addicts to
white-collar workers. His connections run
deep. Brother Yazz comes from a respected
religious family. His father was the late Elder
Pastor Owens, and his mother a revered
member of the community. Surely Brother
Yazz is righteous. He had even rescued Sugar
from prostitution and drug abuse, and mar-
ried her.
For David, protecting a client is routine.
It’s his profession. But curtailing his carnal
passion for Greer is asking too much. She’s
no ordinary client. He had never protected
anyone so beautiful. Could he resist? This is
where the plot quickens. Especially when
Sugar, who he finds irresistible, moves in with
him to feel safe.
Lindsay has woven an interesting plot
around Price’s questionable past and The
New Day Brothers. Even his ex-wife, Regina,
reporter for the local newspaper gets in-
volved. Price then finds himself trying to keep
his past and present out of unsuspected dan-
gerous territory, while his late father’s words
ring in his head: “If you got one foot in the
past and another in the future, you’re pissing
all over today.” Somehow his adolescent
behavior (allegedly murdering two rapists)
comes back to haunt him, turning his firm
handle on Chicago into a karmic valley of
borrowed time for deeds done in the past,
and guns still smoking. Lindsay’s One Dead
[ summer 2000 / mosaic ] 3 5
 Preacher, his first novel, is an impressive read
for urban drama seekers and puts a modern
twist on an old story.
Whatever Happened to
Daddy ’s Little Girl?
Daddy’s
The Impact of FFatherlessness
atherlessness
on Black W omen
Women
By Jonetta Rose Barras
OneW orld / Ballantine
OneWorld
Reviewed by LLynne
ynne d Johnson
All too often sociologists, psychologists,
and the media pontificate about the effects
of fatherlessness on black males. These black
males are stigmatized from the onset of their
lives, singled out to become the dregs of so-
ciety. We are forewarned that because these
black males did not have a father in the
home, or a father figure, that without pre-
ventive services their pubescence will be
filled with self-loathing, which in turn will
lead to drug dealing, killing, and a life in the
penal system. Granted, the majority of father-
less children can expect to live an impover-
ished life, but perhaps all the other predic-
tions are more hype and stereotype than fact.
Is it because they do not have fathers that
they end up this way, or does genetics, envi-
ronment, and individual circumstance play
a more pivotal role in who a fatherless child
will become?
These are questions one could ponder
when reading Jonetta Rose Barras’ Whatever
Happened to Daddy’s Little Girl? The Im-
pact of Fatherlessness on Black Women. Al-
though Barras does an excellent job at ex-
amining the issues surrounding the plight of
fatherless black women—a subject that has
been virtually ignored—the reader may sway
between moments of empathy or sympathy
to wondering “who cares?” Perhaps we have
been desensitized by the countless tales of
3 6 [ mosaic / summer 2000 ]
the fatherless black man turned ill seed to
care enough about exactly how fatherlessness
effects the black community overall.
While Barras wonderfully weaves self-nar-
rative with interviews of fatherless black
women and psychologist’s insight, there are
moments when the reader will be confronted
with asking himself or herself whether being
fatherless has to affect one for the rest of his
or her life? Not to belittle the negative im-
pact that fatherlessness may have on the lives
of black women, but must these women
measure the content of their character by
what studies have shown to be the so-called
norm?
Many members of the black community
often allow stereotypes to dictate their exist-
ence. Barras’ intent to educate and inform
rings clearly, but at the same time it provides
excuses for who the fatherless black woman
has allowed herself to become. Is it only the
fatherless black woman who is more likely
to be promiscuous, non-trusting of men, fear-
ful of love, or an overachiever? Probably not.
Barras’ work is definitely a guide for self-
analysis, and a study for the fatherless black
woman, as well as the father who has been
separated from his daughter. Without judg-
ment or blame, Barras builds a strong case
for the fatherless black woman to further ex-
amine her behavior toward herself and to-
ward the men in her life.
It’s been a long time that we’ve waited for
someone to stand up and discuss
fatherlessness from the perspective of the
black woman. And, Barras does a pretty good
job, although sometimes a little too subjec-
tively. This book most likely served as cathar-
sis for the writer, and it will touch the lives of
many women who search for their father’s
love in all the wrong places. But it leaves the
reader wondering, “Why don’t you get over
it already?”
www.mosaicbooks.com
Soldier: A P oet’s Childhood
Poet’s
By June Jordan
Basic Civitas Books
Reviewed by R. Flowers Rivera
Soldier: A Poet’s Childhood relates the be-
ginning of June Jordan’s life. The manner she
chooses to tell the narrative mimics the form
of most childhood memories—shards of
beauty etched into our minds. Relying upon
a dizzying mixture of poetry and prose, this
memoir conjures the disparate images so
many of us never take the time or the effort
to recall, except maybe in passing. Jordan
blends historical details (Father Divine and
Harlem in the 1940s), blissful reveries (first
boyfriends and family trips to the beach and
grandmothers who never let go of your hand),
and small confessions (“I never wanted and I
never got a Shirley Temple doll”) juxtaposed
with plain old truth (“A really excellent way
to stop somebody from hitting you is to hit
back”) to evoke what first appears to be, but
is not, a bygone era.
The most remarkable aspect of this mem-
oir is the halting language and startling line
breaks. By combining poetry and prose, Jor-
dan forces the reader to ponder images and
conventions of American society that one
might otherwise overlook. Without didacti-
cism, Jordan casts the observer’s eye on the
process by which women instruct girls on
becoming ladies. She also recounts the de-
fining scars and beatings that accompanied
her childhood; shows her family’s sacrifices
that enabled the ostensibly upward move
from Harlem to Brooklyn, but more impor-
tantly, she makes sense of her parents’ com-
plex relationship. Her controlling father un-
derstood what it meant to be Black and fe-
male in the United States but internalized
those stigmas, and her mother saw marital
passion as a luxury that she could do with-
out. Jordan’s ability to assemble her life into
vignettes may call to mind Sandra Cisneros’
The House on Mango Street, however, Sol-
dier shuns the veil of naïvete, even going as
far as illuminating the subtleties involved in
identifying oneself as American Black versus
an African-American whose home is outside
the States. As I read and re-read passages, I
knew that by sharing her story, Jordan was
also giving girls—young ones and those of
us in grown-up bodies—a way to reclaim that
wild streak that is sometimes forgotten along
the way.
So many of us are ill-equipped, unable,
or unwilling to recount our formative years.
This astounding poet and essayist provides
a means by which we can see the similari-
ties of childhood, then and now. A true griot,
she invokes the senses by which we define
ourselves. Hemingway wrote of “a move-
able feast.” Jordan reclaims this idea for all
of us. Through her precision with words,
for whole minutes at a time, Jordan jars each
reader into remembering who we were.
White Teeth
Teeth
by Zadie Smith
Random House
Reviewed by T ara Betts
Tara
Zadie Smith’s White Teeth possesses the
rich detail and engaging dialogue between
characters that makes her novel a refreshing
and surprising first effort by this young au-
thor.
White Teeth opens with Archie Jones try-
ing to commit suicide on New Year’s Day,
1975. After Archie’s failed marriage, he flips
a coin—Archie’s foreshadowing response to
several turning points in the book. This
simple act determines his journey into a car-
bon monoxide blackout. Then a butcher
bangs on his window and shifts him into a
[ summer 2000 / mosaic ] 3 7
 newly printed lease on life. Archie drives
on to meet Clara at a house full of hung over,
marijuana connoisseurs.
Clara is a 19-year-old Jamaican and ex-
Jehovah’s Witness who lost her teeth and her
faith. The two build a new home in North
London, where Archie renews his friendship
with his World War II buddy, Samad Iqbal,
who also married a much younger Muslim
woman named Alsana.
Samad works as a waiter, despite his im-
mobile left hand, and dreams of a better life
while fantasizing about the heroism of his
great-grandfather, Mandal Pandein, in the In-
dian Mutiny of 1857-1859. As the two men
rebuild their relationship by hanging out daily
at the Muslim-owned restaurant,
O’Connell’s, the neglected wives build their
own friendships and eventually have chil-
dren.
Magid and Millat are Alsana and Samad
Iqbal’s twins who are sent on diverging paths
when Samad sends Millat to “Bangladesh,
formerly East Pakistan, formerly India, for-
merly Bengal” until he is old enough to con-
template law school. Magid becomes the
cussing, reefer-smoking, militant Muslim son
bred from Public Enemy records, Mafia mov-
ies and rude boy subculture.
Archie and Clara’s daughter, Irie, grows up
having sleepovers with Magid and
Millat. She follows Magid throughout the
novel, accompanied by her longtime crush;
she also reads and longs to be thinner with
straighter hair to impress him.
After meeting this crew, readers can see
how the arguments can get sparked over
clashing cultures, the alienation between
generations, and children growing up in cul-
tures distinctly different from that of their
parents. Smith manages to tackle all these
subjects with humor, a distinct ability to cap-
ture dialects on paper, and a gift for sensory
3 8 [ mosaic / summer 2000 ]
detail. The fights between husbands and
wives, as well as young and old, are written
like you’re the invisible third party— laugh-
ing silently at the silliness that family mem-
bers create when they annoy each other.
White Teeth is an impressive debut with a
bite that sinks into the complexities of an in-
creasing diversity of all communities of
people of color. White Teeth visits the past
of these families, their arrivals in London, and
leads us to their futures. Smith has given us
the kinds of characters that you want to know
what happens to—long after the book is fin-
ished. The conclusion has merely marked the
end of a particular series of events in the lives
of the Jones and Iqbal families.
Zadie Smith wrote the 449-page novel in
two years, so look forward to her dedication
allowing more memorable characters to
emerge from her pen.
The Black Rose
By Tananarive Due
Tananarive
One W orld /Ballantine Books
World
Reviewed by Mondella S. Jones
Tananarive Due, critically acclaimed au-
thor of My Soul To Keep and The Between,
brings to life The Black Rose, the compel-
ling story of Madame C.J. Walker, America’s
first black female millionaire. Based on re-
search gathered by Alex Haley before his
death in 1992, Ms. Due mixes factual
events, moving dialogue, and fictional ac-
counts and characters to bring the reader
inside the life of a tenacious pioneer.
Born Sarah Breedlove to former slaves on
a Louisiana plantation in 1867 just after
emancipation. Sarah soon experiences the
woes of heartache. Her parents’ untimely
death takes her from a simple and sheltered
world in Delta, Louisiana and forces her into
the cruel working days of Vicksburg, Missis-
www.mosaicbooks.com
sippi. With her sister Lou, Sarah must
struggle and fight to stay above ground. Her
employer, Ms. America Brown, owns her
own washing business with four employees.
Sarah is impressed by Ms. Brown’s intelli-
gence and skill and vows to follow in her
footsteps to become a successful entrepre-
neur. After years of misfortune, Sarah feels
destined to the life of a washerwoman. Her
life changes when she discovers her trans-
forming hair care method.
In 1904, Madame C.J. Walker changed
the way African-American women would
view their hair forever. Her hair oil, along
with the steel comb, revolutionized hair care
as we know it today. Noted as a “hair
culturist,” she once said, “...the Madame
C.J. Walker method is not just about slappin’
some grease on somebody ’s head...my
course teaches the totalment of colored
womanhood, so anyone who sees you will
know right off you are a woman of pride.”
Traveling around the country by train and
car, Madame C.J. Walker introduced women
from all walks of life to her system of “grow-
ing hair.” For $25 she not only taught them
a skill, but also a way of life. A “hair culturist”
could be on the path to self-employment.
She empowered black women with a sense
of pride during a time when women, black
and white, were not treated as equals.
Ms. Due also looks inside Madame’s hard
times, proving that money can’t buy happi-
ness. From her daughter Lelia’s rumored
scandalous behavior to betrayal by her hus-
band, Madame C.J. Walker endured the all-
too-common emotional heartache that
comes with success.
From its humble beginning to its lavish
end, Tananarive Due has given us a won-
derful story of one of the most compelling
women of our time. With careful attention
to detail, she has succeeded in staying faith-
ful to the spirit of Madame C. J. Walker and
to the research and writing of Alex Haley.
The Black Rose proves to be one of the most
powerful stories of the year. Ms. Due’s ac-
complishments with her first work of his-
torical fiction command respect and high
praise.
Father FFound
ound
By R.M. Johnson
Simon & Schuster
Reviewed by K elwyn W
Kelwyn right
Wright
Father Found is an ambitious novel that
continues the themes begun in R.M. Johnson’s
previous novel, The Harris Men. Johnson
has said his debut was born of his desire to
do something about the dearth of novels ex-
ploring the African-American male experi-
ence of familial and other interpersonal re-
lationships. In particular, he chooses to fo-
cus on the different ways black men are af-
fected by the phenomenon of fatherless
households and absentee role models.
“I hate you men!” begins Zale Rowen’s
presentation to a group of absentee fathers
under court order to attend his lecture. Zale
is the president of Father Found, a private,
proactive social services agency, whose lone
goal is to return estranged fathers to their
homes and children. He proceeds to be-
little and berate his captive audience—
”cowards” and “children” being among the
nicer things he calls them. When the crowd
turns ugly, reacting with catcalls and vocal
recriminations, Zale silences them by
smashing a glass water pitcher.
The narrative arc of Father Found is like
the water pitcher: half full, mostly wet, and
eventually, like Zale’s life, shattered into a
million pieces. We first encounter Zale Ro-
wen as an urban Diogenes, literally out look-
(Continued on page 44)
[ summer 2000 / mosaic ] 3 9
[the write stuff]
ebooks
THE NEW WAY TO PUBLISH
Is the feel of a book in your hands soon to be a thing
of the past? Is flipping through pages and making a
wonderful discovery over as we know it? Is the future
here and does it include you? Yes, the inevitable is
here. If not you, then your children will be using elec-
tronic books also known as “eBooks” in the near fu-
ture.
After successfully distributing Riding the Bullet, via the
Internet, Stephen King announced that he would pub-
lish a serial story on his official website at
stephenking.com. The Plant, a novel King started writ-
ing in the 1980s, but put aside for other projects, was
made available via his website in installments begin-
ning in mid-July. Fans will be charged $1 per down-
load; each download is approximately 5,000 words.
King initially released Riding The Bullet as a
downloadable book and was “stunned” by the huge
success of it. Nearly 500,000 copies have been sold
to date.
In a series of articles, Mosaic will look at the phenom-
enon of eBooks and the effects it will have on how
you read, what you read and the publishing industry’s
move into electronic publishing.
SO YOU THINK EBOOKS ARE A FLUKE
n A blurb in the March 23, 2000 issue of USA Today
reported that eBook sales will hit $2.8 billion this year,
which is approximately 10% of all book sales, accord-
ing to the American Book Dealers Association.
4 0 [ mosaic / summer 2000 ]
by Maxine Thompson
n Simon and Schuster and Random House also an-
nounced each had teamed up with Microsoft to pub-
lish books for hand-held devices and computers using
new Microsoft Reader software.
n Time Warner announced the creation of
iPublish.com, calling it “the first dedicated Internet
publishing venture from an American book publisher.”
Digital books will be sold from the iPublish.com site
and through a network of online retail partners includ-
ing amazon.com and barnesandnoble.com. The pub-
lisher will accept unsolicited manuscripts through the
sister site iwrite.com.
DO YOU STILL THINK ELECTRONIC PUBLISHING
IS JUST A FLUKE?
The publishing industry doesn’t. Check out these news-
worthy bits on well-known corporations that are capi-
talizing on the emergence of e-publishing.
n On June 6th software giant Microsoft and online
bookseller Barnesandnoble.com announced their
planned partnership to sell “paper-free” books that can
be read on devices using Microsoft’s Reader software.
Barnes and Noble customers will have the opportu-
nity to access thousands of eBook titles through their
Reader software, an application that will have the abil-
ity to deliver an on-screen computer reading experi-
ence. Deals have already been inked between
Microsoft and such publishing powerhouses as Pen-
guin Books, and R.R. Donnelley & Sons Co. to con-
www.mosaicbooks.com
 mosaicbooks.com
bestsellers
Not A Day Goes By by E. Lynn Harris

Liar’s Game by Eric Jerome Dickey

Satin Doll by Karen Quinones Miller

vert their print titles into electronic books.
Casting the First Stone
n Barnes & Noble, Inc. acquired a 49% ownership inter-
by Kimberla Lawson Roby
est in iUniverse.com, the world’s largest publishing portal
on November 2, 1999. IUniverse.com facilitates writers
Maintenance Man by Michael Baisden
or small publishers wanting to self-publish or publish short
print runs. It is Barnes and Noble’s first major investment
Sugar by Bernice McFadden
in a book-publishing venture. The relationship will pro-
vide a new era of opportunity for out-of-print authors who
will have their books circulated on-demand and for writ-
ers who can now have their books published within 30
books to
look for
days and earn higher royalties––by circumventing the “tra-
ditional publisher.”

It’s clear from all of the industry information now avail-

able that eBook publishing is serious business. What’s even Drop by Mat Johnson
better news is that for smaller publishers, eBook publish-
ing offers an opportunity to compete with the larger elec- Giant Steps: The New Generation of
tronic publishers like ebookconnections.com. This site and
African American Writers
newsletter keeps you updated with eBook sellers, eBook
resources, eBook book clubs, and eBook bestseller lists.
Edited by Kevin Young

Sites such as The Running River, runningriver.com/re- Rails Under My Back

views/index.htm, are devoted to providing, among other by Jeffery Renard Allen
resources, book reviews of eBooks. My company, Black
Butterfly Press has just launched five titles that are eBooks.
To say that I am excited at a chance to get a piece of the
Shadow Dancing by Louise Meriwether
American Dream (free enterprise) without losing my shirt
is an understatement. This activity, as well as print on Bodega Dreams by Ernesto Quinones
demand, has provided a panacea for both writers and
readers. ★
Dark Matters:
A Century of Speculative Fiction
From the African Diaspora
Edited by Sheree Thomas

Trading Twelves:
The Selected Letters
of Ralph Ellison and Albert Murray
Edited by Albert Murray
and John F. Callahan
[ summer 2000 / mosaic ] 4 1
 bernice mcfadden
found herself saying, “I’m just as good a writer, if not
better. Why can’t I get published?” Several months
later, McFadden had turned an unfinished poem she’d
written titled Lotta, into the four hundred page,
thought-provoking novel, Sugar. (The published book,
however, is a powerful two hundred twenty-nine
pages.)
McFadden, determined to get Sugar published que-
ried every agent and publisher listed in The Literary
Marketplace. A few replied saying, “There isn’t a mar-
ket for a literary work by an unknown Black author.”
McFadden was also rejected by every Black agent she
contacted. However, after being published, one Black
agent was gracious enough to write a note of con-
gratulations and expressed regret that she’d been one
of those agents who had rejected her.
In early 1999, McFadden received a call from James
Vines, a literary agent, asking to represent her, and
within two weeks he had obtained McFadden a two-
book contract from Dutton Books. Not leaving Sugar’s
success to chance, McFadden says she, “Harassed ev-
eryone by e-mail. I had announcement cards made
up, went to Black-owned bookstores, called on the
old-girlfriend network. I did everything I could think
of.” Of writing a book, McFadden says, “Well, it’s like
my child. It’s mine, and it’s my responsibility. You can’t
depend upon anyone else. If you believe in what
you’ve written, then you’ve got to play an active role
in promoting it.” McFadden’s aggressive marketing
paid off. Before the January ’99 publication date, Sugar
was in its second printing, and three months later, the
sixth printing has since yielded over twenty-four thou-
sand copies in circulation. Since McFadden wrote
Sugar with thoughts of seeing it on the big screen, the
attention her novel has received from Miramax, Twen-
tieth Century Fox, Penny Marshall’s production com-
pany and Debbie Allen, each expressing an interest
in producing the movie version, has her excited.
“It’s like a fantasy! When things [first] started hap-
pening, they happened very quickly,” exclaims a ju-
bilant McFadden. “I know there’s a lot of people out
4 2 [ mosaic / summer 2000 ]
there trying to get published and you just have to wait
until your time comes around. And last year, well, last
year was my time.” Despite her new celebrity,
McFadden is still just Mom to her twelve year old
daughter, R’yane.
Although a sequel to Sugar was not in her plans,
demands from fans caused McFadden to reconsider.
Unfortunately, with ideas for her next four books al-
ready outlined, the sequel, much of which will be the
two-hundred pages edited out of Sugar’s original four
hundred pages, won’t be released for a while.
McFadden’s second book, The Warmest Decem-
ber, about the tumultuous relationship between an al-
coholic father and his daughter, is scheduled to be
released at the beginning of next year. “Writing book
two is very stressful,” she says. “You have so much
attention showered upon you; on something you’ve
done. The level of expectation is so high, and I’m
scared.”
A writer’s writer, McFadden validates belief that a
new generation of Black authors, skilled in the craft of
writing, will continue our literary legacy. ★
bil wright
Wright admits that he did not want his story to be a
tragic one, but rather a snapshot of life told artisti-
cally. “Writing has taught me to be more daring and
free,” he says.
Aside from writing a knockout novel, Wright is a
talented poet and playwright. A graduate of New York
University’s Tisch School of the Arts, he majored in
acting, and received his Masters of Fine Arts in
playwriting from Brooklyn College. His work has been
published in many anthologies including Men on Men
3 and Shade. His poetry is anthologized in The Road
Before Us, The Name of Love, Jugular Defenses,
The James White Review and Art And Understand-
ing. His plays have been produced at Yale University,
www.mosaicbooks.com
Detroit’s Orchestra Hall, Dixon Place, Nuyorican ics is “If I wrote solely from my own experiences, it
Café, and the Samuel Beckett Theater in New York would make for a boring, self-indulgent novel.” How-
City. Currently he teaches at Borough of Manhattan ever, as any writer, she uses material from her personal
Community College. experiences and the people she has known.
For the best seat in the house, check out Bil While Careful What You Wish For, has elements of
Wright’s novel, Sunday You Learn How To Box. ★ race interwoven in the plot, the major theme of the
work is that one can choose not to be limited by
society ’s expectations, a theme that touches
everyone’s lives.
Hermes’ future projects include re-working some
Shakespearean themes which will allow her to com-
bine her love of both literature and theater and a new
myrlin hermes novel whose main character is even “more different
white writers who are exploring the lives of fictional from herself”, a bisexual man in 16th century Europe.
black characters. Hermes’ response is that she “didn’t As long as the story is still interesting and intelligent
try to write a black character (but) instead thought and the writing rings true, Hermes will definitely have
about how I might feel and what choices I would an audience. ★
make” if she were this character. Hermes acknowl-
edges that “race is a part of a character’s experiences
and attitudes that shape both their choices and their
lives, but a character who is emotionally authentic will
ring true, whatever his or her race.”
Natalie’s character was also influenced by Hermes
next
studies of the literary cliché of the “tragic mulatta.”
She hoped to take this “inherently sexist and racist
myth” and invert it. To this end, she purposefully
makes Natalie both educated and articulate. We learn
issue
later in the book, Natalie has been raised in a middle- nikky
class white household. This not only destroys the finney ursula
aforementioned myth but also made Natalie’s experi- rucker
ences closer to Hermes’ own, which made her “easier
to write about with authority. “ the
Hermes avoids clichés and stereotypes about char- big mango
acters unlike herself by writing “from inside the char-
acter, not outside.” She suggests to writers that are sharif
simmons
writing characters outside of their own experience, “If
a character’s reaction is very different than yours, make
sure you understand why.” slapboxing
Hermes says she has received more criticism for with jesus
“writing about the South as a Northerner than for writ-
ing about black characters.” Her response to her crit-

[ summer 2000 / mosaic ] 4 3

 reviews
ing for lost children under Chicago’s street lamps.
Zale appears to be an anagram for “zeal” as Rowen
will leave no rock unturned in his fanatical crusade
to induce every wayward father home.
Zale is assisted in this crusade by Martin Carter
and Frank Rames, two men he trusts without reser-
vation—the first with his finances and the second
with his life. Father Found alternates between these
three men, telling tales of their fractured lives and
relationships, and concentrating on how, even as
they devote most of their waking hours to Zale’s
admirable cause, they fail their own wives, mates
and children.
This is an unsympathetic tale, told through the
eyes of three sad sack protagonists so self-centered,
flawed and self-righteously cruel, they elicit little—
if any—empathy from the reader. It is telling that
the one engaging male character, the one character
you root for, is Mace, a vicious drug dealer and Zale’s
street-wise protector.
Father Found is also surprisingly misogynistic.
From Frank and Martin’s wives, to Zale’s mother and
foster mother, Johnson’s men are por-
trayed as being beset by harlots, har-
pies and harridans.
I place R.M. Johnson in the wid-
ening ouvre that includes E. Lynn
Harris and Bebe Moore Campbell.
Each of these writers patrol the new
buppie frontier, where the college
educated and the upwardly compen-
sated learn new jack rules of love and
social warfare. Call it Social-Economic Fiction.
Johnson, however, doesn’t project the distinctive
voice of Harris, and his characters don’t have the juice
squirted by Campbell’s often untidy prose.
An accomplished writer, Johnson is blessed with
a prosaic fluidity. His seemingly effortless prose never
sags or trips you from the narrative. In fact, it holds
you snugly, buckles you in and carries you long af-
ter you cease to care if the lost men of Found find
redemption. ★
4 4 [ mosaic / summer 2000 ]
long live the king
These photos are solitary in nature, intimate photos
of Ali eating, shopping for clothes, swimming, spar-
ring, and running.
For the most part the photos are unremarkable.
What makes them memorable is there freshness and
candor. Even the photos taken right after Ali’s an-
nouncement that he converted to Islam are memo-
rable for there shear plainness and beauty –– Ali sit-
ting in a suit, ruffled shirt and bow tie that seemed
more suited for a Las Vegas act than a new member of
the Nation of Islam.
Overall it is always hard to get a look into someone’s
life just by looking at pictures but, The Birth will give
you a glimpse of Cassius Clay, before the birth of
Muhammad Ali.
REDEMPTION SONG:
MUHAMMAD ALI AND THE SPIRIT OF THE SIXTIES
For a serious study of Muhammad Ali and the
1960s I strongly suggest you read Redemption Song:
Muhammad Ali and the Spirit of the Sixties by Mike
Marqusee.
With deep and penetrating detail for specif-
ics, the author gives us a near complete look at
the era of Cassius Clay, Muhammad Ali and the
60s as they parallel through this turbulent de-
cade. With reference to many 1960s icons, in-
cluding Eldridge Cleaver, The Black Panthers, Bob
Dylan and Louis X (Louis Farrakhan), Mike
Marqusee has given the reader more than a book
on Ali, here we have a tome to a specific time in
history that revolved around Ali. Redemption
Song makes lengthy references to the Civil Rights Move-
ment, Vietnam and Black Nationalism. The author’s
ability to weave what may have been perceived as dif-
ferent unconnected forces during the same era is fas-
cinating.
It may be unfair to include Redemption Song in
this group since the goals are more substantial in na-
ture, but you will not go wrong if you add Redemp-
tion Song and Muhammad Ali: The Birth of A Legend,
Miami, 1961-1964 to your library. ★
www.mosaicbooks.com
kooraju
books, eclectic tapes and food that he had grown
and cooked. I told him he couldn’t seduce me with
his food. And he warned me as I chomped into his
first lentil nut loaf that the Maroons and the Mau Mau
had both used poison in food as a guerilla tactic to
defeat their oppressors.
I swallowed my first mouthful and continued eating.
He told me things about myself. I stopped reading
trashy daily horoscopes and like my ancestors
started looking at the stars and the moon
for signs. I tuned into my menstrual cycle
and started to feel the pull of the moon
on my temperament.
“You are so moony,” he said as we lay
on the tarpaulin outside his bamboo hut
stargazing. I was upset that he had not
taken the time out from work to celebrate my
birthday.
“And spoiled. You are very spoiled,” he chirped.
I tried to ignore him, tried to remember that as an
organic farmer, his rhythm was different to my city
beat. But I kept on coming back to the fact that I had
turned a quarter of a century and had not heard a
word of congratulations from him.
“The earth has had over a million birthdays. How
have we celebrated this great accomplishment?” he
remarked, “This life is a collection of birth days. Ev-
eryday I give birth to something new, a pawpaw tree,
a cashew tree, sorrel, string beans, okra, pumpkin,
sweet potato, the herb of all herbs. The earth rewards
me with her glorious multiple births.”
Just think of me for a minute, will you. I thought as
he rubbed my stomach trying to ease the pain of an-
other menstrual cycle. What about me? My needs.
My desires. My relationship with you.
“Touch my womanhood, will you?” I pleaded.
He put his two hands on my expectant breasts and
rubbed them so gently.
I sighed in relief.
He became my family. Everyone else was away.
Scattered.
My eldest sister chasing stock market dreams on
Wall Street. My brother training to find his self back
where we all grew up in Canada. My youngest sister
calculating the quickest way to graduate from high
school so that she could do the thing she loved best–
paint. My father reminiscing about the good old days
before society retired him. My mother trying to be the
strong Black woman that everyone thought she should
be.
They were with me in spirit. I wrote them
every alternate week censoring my letters
depending on whom I was writing to. Dad
was the only one that really wrote regu-
larly but he was not the most exciting
writer, his letters an exercise in short-
listing. Receiving them from the post of-
fice, I would put them aside until the
weekend when I had enough energy to
read them.
Of his family, he spoke very little although he wanted
to say more. All I knew was that he had been raised by
his grandmother in St. Vincent. His mother had left
the island to study nursing in England were she had
died before filing for him. His father had been absent
in his life though he had left sisters and brothers for
him everywhere. Kooraju had moved to Antigua in
search of more lucrative work but had been appalled
by the barbarism of tourism.
“My family now is the community I cultivate,” he
said half-talking to me, half-talking to his field of corn.
He invited me to his grounds after our reasonings
became too deep as to discuss in my sterile workplace.
“What part of your body do you love the most?”,
he asked one day while digging for cassava in his field.
“I mean, the part that if you lost it would make you
feel incomplete.”
“My heart,” I responded, embarrassing myself with
my quickness.
“Oh… That’s what makes me so enraptured by you.
Your contradiction,” he stated.
I wanted him to explain himself but he told me that
some things are better left unsaid. I wrapped my arms
around myself and began to weep. 0
[ summer 2000 / mosaic ] 4 5
 We entered each other that night under the stars -
flesh on flesh. He was so sensitive afterwards. He
wouldn’t even let me touch him. Why couldn’t we
just be friends? I asked.
What is just?, he responded.
I circled his belly button with my index finger and
he flinched.
There was no difference afterwards. No line that
we had crossed changing the nature of our relation-
ship. It just continued to grow, as usual. And with it,
the reasonings.
“We should work together,” he said one day over a
calabash of homemade pumpkin soup. “There are so
few of us now concerned with the earth and her fruits,
so few of us who want to work the ground, despite
our memory of slavery. All the youth want is a job in a
bank or with computers. But what will they eat? Dis-
ease? Put your precious energy where your heart is
JahmiIka, and help me. I’m a brother who can offer
you nothing but food for the body and the soul.”
I wanted to work with him. To be self-sufficient. I
really did. I wanted to follow my heart, to say to hell
with this system and to fly in new ways, even to culti-
vate and to write. I saw the daily destruction, the ex-
cess of new cars and dream homes filled with cancer
patients. I witnessed the dependence on foreign food
and the amnesia regarding local herbal remedies. But
that mental slavery Bob had spoken of kept me sta-
tionary. I moved two steps forward and three steps
back.
“What more do you need?” he asked one day as I
grated a coconut for the curry he was preparing?
I didn’t answer because the joy was there, the peace
was there, the passion was there. Sure, he didn’t have
a penny or the new bare necessities of this life - run-
ning water, electricity, a telephone, cable TV and a
PC. But, he was the healthiest and most hardworking
person I had ever met. And if this system didn’t re-
ward him, Mother Earth certainly did.
Thank you, she said in all her glory. Thank you for
cultivating me.
4 6 [ mosaic / summer 2000 ]
He left me that night.
“It’s either me or your babylon job,” he said. “How
can you continue working like a zombie doing some-
thing that you don’t want to do without destroying
self. Free up yourself and follow truth.”
When I went up the hill to his cultivation days later
to tell him I had quit my job and was ready to work
with him, it was already too late. Everything he had
planted had been razed to the ground. The authori-
ties had come in and the police had distributed the
herb he was growing amongst themselves. Not even a
pumpkin remained in his patch. And I couldn’t even
shed a tear.
Folks told me they had extradited him to a prison
back home in St. Vincent, after cutting off his locks.
He stood trial for possession of cannabis indica, grow-
ing it with intention to sell and for squatting on private
property. And there was nothing I could do except
remember what had been.
Months later, word spread that he had escaped from
prison and was “roaming at large in the hills.” Five years
later, they still haven’t found him and in all that time,
he has only visited me again in my dreams. He says,
“Now is the time” and pushes me to move on with
the part I love most.
My heart. ★
sugar
do.”
“1 think it’s downright disgusting,” Pearl said, frus-
trated because Sugar could offer no valid explana-
tion.
“Well...don’t knock it until you’ve tried it.”
Pearl huffed. “I don’t know nothing about you,
Sugar. You live next door and we spend time together,
but you still a stranger to me.”
Sugar laughed. “Miss Pearl, I see you one of those
soupy drunks.”
Pearl scratched at her nose. “I ain’t drunk.” Her
www.mosaicbooks.com
words were slurred and she squirmed again against
the warm feeling between her legs. “Tell me some-
thing, what you think your mamma woulda said ‘bout
what you do?”
Sugar stiffened at the words. They hit her like pel-
lets. “Okay, Miss Pearl, I think it’s time for you to go
now.” She stood and stretched her long brown frame.
Any high she had was quickly seeping from her.
“Y-you think she woulda approved of you being a
whore?” Pearl continued, oblivious to the anger that
was building up in Sugar.
Sugar flinched at the questions and swallowed
hard. She did not want to discuss a mother she never
knew.
“She dead. How am I suppose to know what she
think?” she said and bent down to snatch up Pearl’s
empty glass.
“I don’t think she wouldalikeditverymuch.” Pearl’s
bottom lip was stuck out and her head began to look
too heavy for her neck.
Sugar just smirked.
“You think maybe she was a whore too?” The
words fell effortlessly from Pearl’s mouth arid luckily
Sugar had sense enough to realize that Pearl’s words
were only alcohol induced.
“Miss Pearl, if my mamma was a whore then she
did what she felt she had to do. I ain’t gonna judge
her, cause I don’t want to be judged. Anyway, we
whores ain’t all that different from the rest of you.”
Pearl’s eyebrows went up. “How you figure that?”
“Well we all got working pussies. We all whores
in one way or another—”
“I ain’t no whore. I know that for sure!” Pearl ex-
claimed.
“Yes, you is, Pearl, you and your mamma before
you—“
“I ain’t no whore!” Pearl was standing now.
“You lay down with your husband and in return
he clothe and feed you—keep a roof up over your
head. You stop laying with him, all those things dis-
appear.” Sugar snapped her fingers for emphasis.
That was not true. And Pearl shook her head insis-
tently no, but she would not tell of what didn’t go on
in her bedroom. She would riot.
“Look here, I do what I have to to put food on my
table and clothes on my back and will keep on doing
it same as you.”
Pearl raised her hands in defeat. She did not want
to argue again, but she had Sugar angry now. Sugar’s
tongue flicked words at Pearl like a whip.
“The only difference between you and me, Miss
Pearl, is you began your whoring life in front of a con-
gregation, dressed in white and with God’s blessing!”
She slammed into the house, leaving Pearl sorry
for speaking at all. Pearl heard the glasses crash into
the sink. The refrigerator door opened and slammed
closed three times and by the time Pearl’s foot landed
on the last step Sugar was back on the porch, huffing
and puffing like a wild, angry boar.
“You right’ Miss Pearl, you don’t know me at all. I
been on my own since I was fifteen fucking years old.
Fifteen! And did you forget how I told you I survived?
Have you forgotten!” Sugar’s anger had the best of
her now. Pearl turned to meet Sugar’s enraged eyes
but she did not utter a word.
“With my pussy, that’s how! Men pay to fuck, eat
and smell my pussy!”
Pearl blushed at Sugar’s use of language; she
wanted to throw her hands up to her ears.
Sugar was spent, the anger was mellowing down
to simple annoyance now. Her breathing slowed and
she sat down heavily on the steps.
“I ain’t bad, Miss Pearl, I just ain’t had no cross-
roads in my life is all.”
Pearl traced Sugar’s jawline with her hand. “Yes
you have, child, you just wasn’t able to recognize
them when you came across them.” ★
Sugar
Copyright © 2000 Bernice McFadden
Reprinted with permission of EP Dutton
[ summer 2000 / mosaic ] 4 7
 sunday you learn how to box
He’d zipped his pants and I could look him in the
face. I’d never been this close to Ray Anthony before,
and he’d certainly never said anything to me. It was
the first time I realized one of his two front teeth was
chipped, just a little on the inside corner. He also had a
big dent in his chin.
“No,” I said. If I’d thought about it, I might have
been scared to say no to him. But it seemed like he
didn’t expect me to say yes, he’d already figured out
I’d say no, that wasn’t the point of him asking. He
walked closer to me and reached for the handlebars.
That’s when I saw his hair had a rusty, orange glow to
it. I didn’t like orange or red much. But Ray Anthony
Robinson’s hair was unlike any other reds or oranges
I’d seen before.
“Leggo,” he told me.
I smelled the cigarette on his breath, kept staring at
the chipped tooth. I was filling in the space to see what
he’d look like if he got it fixed.
“I can’t let you ride it. My mom will see.
“I’ll go the other way. Leggo.”
I’d already let go. Ray Anthony pushed my bike
through the bushes. I stood in the opening and watched
him throw his leg over it easily without having to get a
running start. He was wearing shoes with pointy toes
and buckles on the sides. Pushing off, he huddled over
the bars like the kids did when they raced each other.
Except Ray Anthony wasn’t racing anybody. He was
just riding my bike wherever he’d decided to take it. I
watched his butt lifted in the air and the muscles in his
legs as he pumped the pedals. All I could do was wait
behind the bushes and hope he wouldn’t ride it in front
of my house where Mom could see him, and that he’d
bring it back. Soon.
I started to feel the cold for the first time that morn-
ing. But I couldn’t move, playing the whole thing with
Ray Anthony backwards and forwards in my mind. His
cigarette was lying a few feet away. That and his foot-
prints in the snow with the long, pointy toes were my
evidence that he’d really been there.
But evidence wouldn’t matter anyway. He hadn’t
4 8 [ mosaic / summer 2000 ]
beat me up, knocked me down and ridden over me
on my own bike. I was sure he’d seen me coming,
sure that he’d waited till I could watch him, smoking
and making bridges of piss in the air. But hoodlum or
not, he’d told me only once, without sounding any
more dangerous than my own mother, to let go of those
handlebars. And I had. Without a fight, without even
thinking about fighting him.
It might have been a half hour, it might have been
longer before Ray Anthony brought my bike back, but
by now, the time didn’t matter. Whatever happened
had happened already, before he left. It’s the differ-
ence between when something begins and something
continues. You can’t compare the two.
When he pushed the bike back through the bushes,
there was sweat running down from his thick bush of
rust-colored hair and he had a perfectly folded hand-
kerchief he kept patting his forehead with.
“You want me to ride you now? C’mon. Get behind
me.”
He was crazy. If I could get the bike away from him,
the only thing I wanted to do was run home with it
and tell my mother any lie I could think of to keep
from coming outside again. The bike had attracted
people I never would have spoken to or had anything
to do with. If I couldn’t lose it or give it away, I had to
think of some excuse not to bring it out again anytime
soon.
By the time I got home, Miss Odessa had already
called Mom and told her she’d seen me behind the
bushes with Ray Anthony Robinson. Told her she saw
Ray Anthony ride away from the bushes on a red bi-
cycle which by now the whole projects knew was mine.
Mom asked me, “Well, what’s your story, Louis?” but
she was already in a mood to beat some behind.
“You gonna let everybody in the projects ride it but
you? I didn’t spend months cleaning behind white men
for that.”
“He made me.” I was looking at her, but I was pic-
turing Ray Anthony Robinson with his chipped tooth,
his rusty hair.
www.mosaicbooks.com
 Mom started with her fists. “No, today was your
fault. You can’t blame today on anybody else.” Then
she grabbed the broom. She turned it upside down
and used the stick part on me as my sister watched,
looking troubled, but helpless. ★
Sunday You Learn How To Box
Copyright © 2000 Bil Wright
Reprinted with permission of Simon & Schuster
careful what you wish for
for a long moment. “Water’s boiling,” she said.
Eleanor dropped the noodles into the water and
looked at her “How long have you been passing?”
she asked quietly.
Natalie looked up. “Beg pardon?”
“For white,” Eleanor said. “How long you been
passing for white?”
Natalie was quiet for a long moment. “That what
I’ve been doing?”
“What do you call it?”
“Staying out of the sun.”
The grandfather clock chimed five times. Eleanor
sighed and stirred the noodles with a wooden spoon.
“So how long has it been?”
“All my life,” Natalie said. “I didn’t even know why
myself until a few months ago.” She pushed her hair
back behind her ears. “And I could have gone on,”
she said. “I was going to get married this spring, you
know. I didn’t have to tell him.” She looked up at
Eleanor “I could have had your life.”
“My life’s not so bad,” Eleanor said. She certainly
wouldn’t trade it for Natalie’s, would she? Wandering
from place to place, from lover to lover. It was a life
Evalie might have lived. If she had lived. Eleanor sighed
and picked up the celery. She broke off a piece of the
stalk and crunched on it as she cut up the rest and
mixed it in with the ham. Natalie began throwing cher-
ries into the air, catching them neatly in her mouth.
Eleanor watched her, the tautness in the tendons of
her neck, the little motion as she caught each cherry
in her teeth and neatly spit out the stone.
“You got any Indian in you?” Eleanor asked.
She took a cherry pit out of her mouth and shrugged.
“Maybe,” she said. “Bit of everything, I guess. In-
dian, Mexican. Maybe even Chinese. I don’t know.”
“You don’t know?” Eleanor raised an incredulous
eyebrow. Natalie put down the cherries and slid off of
the kitchen counter “You don’t know who your daddy
was, either How do you know you’re not ‘passing’
right now?”
Eleanor looked up — was it impertinence? But no,
those fierce yellow eyes were asking her to under-
stand. “Your mother didn’t tell you who your daddy
was?” she asked.
“If you mean the woman who gave birth to me, I
asked her She didn’t know,” Natalie said.
“She didn’t know? What do you mean she didn’t...”
“He was wearing a sheet.” Natalie’s voice was flat
and cool. The silence fell around them, cold and white,
like snow.
“Dear Lord,” Eleanor breathed. The air around
them was perfectly still, silent.
“Dear Lord,” agreed Natalie. She did not smile.
Eleanor put down her knife. She knew that such
things happened, it was true. Everyone knew, and no
one spoke of it, just as it was not considered polite, in
Liberty, to ask how some yellow girl came to be so
light. But it was important to ask it, important to look
your husband’s mistress in the face instead of turning
away to hide in the hollow between ignorance and
guilt. Tears gathered in Eleanor’s eyes. “There’s too
much that goes on that isn’t talked of,” she said. Her
voice choked on the words. “That’s why whatever
made me ask John to bring you here did it. I didn’t
know it myself I don’t even know what it was that
made me do it, but that was why.” ★
Careful What You Wish For
Copyright © 1999 Myrlin Hermes
Reprinted with permission of Simon & Schuster
[ summer 2000 / mosaic ] 4 9
 charles l.
blockson
literary

5 0 [ mosaic / summer 2000 ] www.mosaicbooks.com

The Charles L. Blockson Literary Collective is dedicated to sponsoring programs and ini-
tiatives designed to promote family literacy within communities of color. Named after one
of the foremost African-American bibliophiles in the nation, the Charles L. Blockson Liter-
ary Collective was founded in 2000 by three independent literary publications, African
Voices, Anansi: Fiction of the African Diaspora, and Mosaic Magazine. The Collective is
based in New York City.

collective
African Voices, a 501 (c) (3), non-profit organization, is dedicated to highlighting the art,
literature and history of people of color. Founded in 1992, the organization publishes a
national literary arts magazine that features poetry, short stories, book reviews, art and
profiles. African Voices sponsors poetry readings, forums, art exhibitions and other com-
munity programs.

ANANSI is the latest incarnation of a long and impressive line of literary achievements.
Introducing original short fiction by talented writers of African descent, ANANSI is an un-
apologetic celebration of black literature and its legacy. Dedicated to honoring the diverse
storytelling tradition of black writers, ANANSI is published four times a year.

Mosaic Literary Magazine is an exciting quarterly dedicated to covering all aspects of

African American and Hispanic literature. The magazine regularly features author inter-
views, profiles, book reviews and previews, feature articles, poetry and excerpts some of
the latest books.

[ summer 2000 / mosaic ] 5 1

children’s book fair
SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 23RD, 12 NOON - 6PM
at THE BROOKLYN PUBLIC LIBRARY
Grand Army Plaza
Brooklyn, NY 11238 (718) 230-2100

authors, readings, free books and fun!

SPONSORED BY
THE BROOKLYN PUBLIC LIBRARY and
THE CHARLES L. BLOCKSON LITERARY COLLECTIVE
IN CELEBRATION OF NEW YORK IS BOOK COUNTRY

Directions: 2 or 3 train to Grand Army Plaza

5 2 [ mosaic / summer 2000 ] www.mosaicbooks.com