The Last Days of Louisiana Red

Paperback
Price: $11.95 $9.56 Save $2.39 (20%)

When Papa LaBas (private eye, noonday HooDoo, and hero of Reed's Mumbo Jumbo) comes to Berkeley, California, to investigate the mysterious death of Ed Yellings, owner of the Solid Gumbo Works, he finds himself fighting the rising tide of violence propagated by Louisiana Red and those militant opportunists, the Moochers.

A HooDoo detective story and a comprehensive satire on the explosive politics of the '60s, The Last Days of Louisiana Red exposes the hypocrisy of contemporary American culture and race politics.

Details

ISBN-10 1-56478-236-0

ISBN-13 9781564782366

Publication Date Mar 2000

Nb of pages 179

Dimensions 5.5 x 8.5 in.

Onix

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Reviews

Press Reviews

New York Times Book Review

"Ishmael Reed has a shrewd eye, a mean ear, a nasty tongue . . . He attacks self-serving hypocrisy wherever he finds it . . . We may be horrified or amused—or both. But we are too fascinated to go away."

Time Magazine

"Reed can hardly be accused of eye rolling and cakewalking for his supper. His angers and resentments are sheathed in intelligence, learning, scatological wit and showmanship. One thinks of Redd Foxx

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New Republic

"The Last Days of Louisiana Red blends paradox, hyperbole, understatement and signifyin' so expertly you can almost hear a droll black voice telling the tales as you read it."

Choice

"Funky, hip, and cool . . . The language is re-cycled garbage that sometimes, amazingly, becomes poetry and almost always is authentic, alive."

New York Times

"A tangle of allusions, an allegorical puzzle that keeps the mind on its toes . . . Mr. Reed exercises in jokes and wisecracks, scholarship and satire. All of which makes for a frenetic form of vaudeville show."

Village Voice

"This is a very alive novel of living folklore; sometimes Reed's prose feels like walking through a field teeming with wild game which jumps out from under your feet."

Library Journal

"This novel disguised as a verbal comic strip is brilliant and funny."

Publishers Weekly

"Reed at his bravura best in the use of language and parody."

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