The Free-Lance Pallbearers

Paperback
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Ishmael Reed's electrifying first novel zooms readers off to the crazy, ominous kingdom of HARRY SAM—a miserable and dangerous place ruled for thirty years by Harry Sam, a former used car salesman who wields his power from his bathroom throne. In a land of a thousand contradictions peopled by cops and beatniks, black nationalists and white liberals, the crusading Bukka Doopeyduk leads a rebellion against the corrupt Sam in a wildly uproarious and scathing satire, earning the author the right to be dubbed "the brightest contributor to American satire since Mark Twain" (The Nation).

Details

ISBN-10 1-56478-225-5

ISBN-13 9781564782250

Publication Date Sep 1999

Nb of pages 168

Dimensions 5.5 x 8.5 in.

Onix

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Reviews

Press Reviews

Newsweek

"An explosive combination of straightforward English prose, exaggerated black dialect, hip jargon, advertising slogans and long, howling uppercase screams."

The Nation

"Reed's hero serves as a weird telescope for a society that is terrifying for its violence and passive hypocrisy, yet somehow hilarious as well . . . If comparisons are to be made, they should be to Burroughs, but this novel is all Mr. Reed's own. Read it."

New York Review of Books

"Reed's gift is for the outrageous, for giving vivid expression to cultural controversies very much in the air . . . He is one of the most underrated writers in America. Certainly no other

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San Francisco Chronicle

"A madly exuberant fantasy about a benevolent despot . . . suggests a psychedelic light show, fountains of words and images and hip argot. There is some Hieronymus Bosch brilliance in this free-wheeling prose."

Commonweal

"Ishmael Reed can hardly be called a camp follower. His novel inverts conventional attitudes for sustained comic effect; his feints are brilliant and his punches swift."

East Village Other

"A lot of people are going to be angry . . . and a lot of people are going to laugh, but it is the least a great book has to pay in a society which mesmerizes ideas into products."

Publishers Weekly

"This bitter, caustic, bawdy novel rips the American establishment to pieces . . . It is strong and imaginative, with a real shock value and a dazzling play on words."

Quotations

"A great writer."

-James Baldwin

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