"Baraka remains a prodigiously skilled writer . . . Ultimately, those most familiar with Baraka as a rabble-rousing poet may be surprised that his prose can so readily make one squirm as well as smile."
"Throughout, Baraka makes his prose jump with word coining—’outtelligent,’ ‘overstand’—and one-liners. But the humor and off-the-wall jaunts, however whacked-out, tackle real issues of race, otherness and power with pointed irony.
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"In his signature politically piercing and poetic staccato style, Baraka offers a perspective on social and political changes and a fresh view of the possibilities that language presents in exploring human passions . . . Fans and newcomers alike will appreciate Baraka’s breadth of political perspective and passion for storytelling."
"4 stars."
Baraka is such a provocateur, so skilled at prodding his perceived enemies (who are legion) in their tender underbellies, that it becomes easy to overlook that he is first and foremost a writer. And a specific kind of writer at that: an old-guard, avant-garde dinosaur, devoted to left-wing politics and formal experimentation. There’s no understanding him without understanding that.
— The New York Times
At their best, these are playful sketches that stretch language and imagination in unexpected ways but still maintain some connection to existing social reality.
— The Washington Post
The same rhetorical bomb throwing that drew attention to Baraka for his poem "Who Blew Up America" shoots through these stories written from 1974 through the present. Baraka works over issues of politics, race, sex and the afterlife, though the focus is always on ideas and wordplay. In "Conrad Loomis and the Clothes Ray," the narrator's friend Conrad reveals his new invention, a "clothes ray" that zaps the illusion of natty clothing onto the body of a naked person. Loomis describes himself as "outtelligent," which is superior to plain intelligence because it represents a brightness focused outward rather than inward. He also explains that while most people can understand problems, he can both "over and understand them." Linguistic ticks and characters like Loomis represent the engaging but intellectually imprecise core of this collection. At their best, these stories stretch language and churn out grimly whimsical notions, but Baraka also misfires, tweaking language into meaninglessness, or, for instance, melding The Matrix with hoary 9/11 conspiracy theories. (Dec.) Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.
Baraka, who has had a long and distinguished career as a poet, fiction writer, activist, and provocateur, here presents a collection of previously unpublished short stories spanning almost 30 years, from 1974 to 2003. Baraka has a rich and distinctive voice (militant, hip, urban, jazz-inflected, and punctuated with bursts of street slang), and in the work included here we find him experimenting and taking risks. Thus, as one might expect, these pieces range widely in terms of quality. A few of the pieces are strong, while much of the rest is uneven. But the collection nonetheless records a marvelously vital and creative mind at work. Among the best pieces are "Blank," an edgy, surreal story about a man who finds himself on a city street with no memory of who he is, and "Neo-American," a story about politics in New Jersey in the 1970s. This is a mixed grab-bag of a book, but there is enough here to make it a worthwhile acquisition for many libraries.-Patrick Sullivan, Manchester Community Coll., Manchester, CT Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.
A grab-bag of pieces from the long-time poet, critic and provocateur, drawing inspiration from tall tales, sci-fi, Beat poetry and wild abstraction. For better or worse, Baraka is now best known for voicing anti-Semitic 9/11 conspiracy theories in his poem "Somebody Blew Up America," delivered while he was New Jersey's poet laureate. This collection, drawn mostly from Baraka's work over the past two decades, goes a long way toward reminding readers of the breadth of his talents-his prose bears by turns the influence of Ray Bradbury, John Coltrane and '60s leftist tracts. But though his writing is colorful and overflowing with ideas, the stories collected here often feel maddeningly unfinished or didactic. The 1975 story "Neo-American," which follows the black mayor of a New Jersey town on the day of the president's visit, makes some obvious points about power's corrupting influence and the disconnect between black leaders and the communities they serve. "What Is Undug Will Be" is that story's near-polar opposite, an act of automatic writing that seems divorced from logic. ("It wasn't just I, but I & I, but you was only half of you.") But he also offers a few laughs (and shrewd observations about race) in a handful of brief stories describing a man's out-there inventions-a device that takes you to wherever a song of your choice is playing, a ray gun that clothes you in whatever you imagine and a "pig detector" that identifies nearby cops. And he's a solid craftsman of more conventional works like "Mondongo," about two Air Force buddies on an ill-fated hunt for prostitutes in Puerto Rico, and "Norman's Date," a story that originally appeared in Playboy, about a one-night-stand gone wrong.Elsewhere, though, he dismisses the latter piece as a potboiler; for Baraka, telling the story straight is a rare (and suspect) tactic. A perfect encapsulation of a sui generis writer-work that is often as frustrating as it is enlightening.
