Drop: A Novel - Hardcover

Johnson, Mat

 
9781582341040: Drop: A Novel
Hardcover
ISBN 10: 1582341044 ISBN 13: 9781582341040
Verlag: Bloomsbury USA, 2000

Inhaltsangabe

A new voice in American fiction recalling the work of Ralph Ellison and James Baldwin, Drop is an irreverent and unforgettable coming-of age-story about a 31-year-old black man who struggles to break out of the ghetto.

Chris Jones has a gift for creating desire-no doubt a result of his own passion and desire to be anywhere but where he is, to be anyone but himself. He has a knack for creating effective ad campaigns. His work lands him a gig in London. Far away from his Philly roots, Chris is raking in the dough, has a Nigerian girlfriend, a beautiful apartment, and goes clubbing in the West End. He enjoys the role of the successful black American, living among the bourgeois Africans and West Indians of London. No longer afraid of what he calls the 'Pop pop pop' of gunfire so prevalent on the streets of his hometown, Chris is finally free.

But life takes a turn for the worse, and Chris finds himself back where he started, forced back to Philadelphia where his only job prospect is answering phones at the electrical company, helping the poor pay their heating and lighting bills. Surrounded by his brethren, the down and out, indigent, the hopeless, Chris hits bottom. Only a stroke of inspiration and faith will get him back on his feet. Drop is a funny, moving and ultimately profound tale of a man determined to break the pattern of the ghetto he despises and who, in the process, is forced to come to terms with his hatred for himself.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Mat Johnson received his MFA from Columbia. He now lives in Harlem with his wife. He is currently at work on a literary horror novel that takes place in Harlem.

Rezensionen

An African-American ad designer follows his luck from the hood to the U.K.Aand backAin this uneven but quite worthwhile first novel. At 31, having finally earned his B.A., narrator Chris Jones yearns to escape West Philadelphia, his rundown hometown. When Chris wins third place in a marketing contest, his entry catches the eye of David Crombie, a brilliant designer with Jamaican roots. David invites Chris to move to Britain and work for his tiny ad agency in Brixton (a largely black part of South London). Once there, Chris designs some ads and finds a passionate Nigerian girlfriend. His main job, however, is helping David's wife pick up the pieces after David's benders. Then there's a tragic twist of fate, and Chris must return to West Philly. Bitter and dejected, he takes a temp job at the electric company, phoning poor people to help them pay their bills. He must reconcile himself with his co-workers and clients, with his homegirl Alex and with the milieu in which he grew up. Johnson's portrait of West Philly is as nuanced, elegant and witty as his portrait of Brixton is lifeless and flat, and the urban American supporting characters seem alive and genuine in a way none of the English figures begins to be. Chris's inner journey toward peace with his hood and with himself remains bittersweet without being sentimental; it's in Chris's own psyche, and in his West Philly, that Johnson shows his gifts. If the author's next novel resembles the last half of this one, he will have become a writer to celebrate. (Sept.)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Johnson's debut novel reworks a venerable theme: the young American who travels abroad to forge a new identity but ends by discovering that he is far more American than he'd realized.Chris Jones is a 31-year-old African-American, living in Philadelphia, who wants to work in advertising but is having trouble breaking into the bigger New York agencies. When a job offer arrives from a small London agency, he leaps at the chance. Initially, his middle-class London neighborhood of Brixton seems a paradise compared to inner-city Philadelphia. No drug dealers on the streets, no gun battles at night, no pervasive climate of racism. Just as James Baldwin and Richard Wright found sanctuary in Paris, London offers Chris a spiritual liberation that Philadelphia couldn't. But there are ripples in the seemingly placid surface: Chris's boss, David Crombie, is mercurial and unreliable, and his Nigerian lover, Fionna Otubanjo, seems more interested in his bank account than in Chris. Then, when David dies suddenly, Chris finds himself broke and out of a job. He returns reluctantly to Philadelphia, promising himself that he'll go back to London as soon as possible. Life at home is a struggle: enduring a squalid apartment, struggling to find work, seeing his hopes evaporate. Urged on by his closest friend, Alex, Chris finally lands a job answering phones at the electric company, bringing him into contact with precisely the kind of dream-deferred, inner-city life that he tried to escape in London. In scenes both corrosively funny and bittersweet, Chris discovers that he has an innate American sensibility not so easily discarded. The tale ends on an optimistic note, as Chris sees both Philadelphia and London in a newer, wiser light.Johnson's writing is uneven, often piling on similes and metaphors enough to slow down the narrative. But he gets his story told and his characters are real in what, on balance, ends up as a strong debut. -- Copyright © 2000 Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

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Verlag
Bloomsbury USA
Erscheinungsdatum
2000
Sprache
Englisch
ISBN 10 
1582341044
ISBN 13 
9781582341040
Einband
Gebundene Ausgabe
Anzahl der Seiten
288
Kontakt zum Hersteller
Nicht verfügbar
Verantwortliche Person
WordUnited GmbH
distribution@wordunited.com

Theodorstrasse 105
DUSSELDORF
40472
Deutschland

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