The Unicorn Woman
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- £11.99
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- £11.99
Publisher Description
'A literary giant' TAYARI JONES
A richly imaginative and moving new novel from the Pulitzer finalist and acclaimed author of Corregidora
A cook and tractor repairman, Buddy was known as Budweiser to his army pals because he's a wise guy. But underneath that surface, he's a man on a quest: looking for religion, looking for meaning, looking for love.
Returning from the Second World War not to a hero's welcome, but to the discrimination of the Jim Crow laws, Buddy stumbles across the Unicorn Woman, a carnival sideshow with a horn growing from her forehead, whose strange beauty he can't forget.
As he drifts across the South, from Kentucky to Memphis, Buddy encounters a dazzling array of almost mythic characters: circus barkers, topiary trimmers, landladies who provide shelter and plenty of advice for their all-Black clientele, proto feminists and bigots - dreaming all the while of the unforgettable Unicorn Woman herself.
With her inimitable eye for beauty, tragedy and humour, Jones offers a rich, intriguing exploration of the Black imagination in a time of frustration and hope.
'Her truth-telling, filled with beauty, tragedy, humour, and incisiveness, is unmatched' IMANI PERRY
'Gayl Jones is enjoying a dazzling late-career renaissance' SUZI FEAY, TLS
'Intricate, mesmerising and endlessly inventive' DEESHA PHILYAW
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
A Black WWII veteran becomes enraptured by a carnival performer in the sometimes glimmering but mostly plodding latest from Jones (The Birdcatcher). Buddy Ray Guy, who fought in France as a teenager, travels across Kentucky and Tennessee for tractor repair jobs. During a visit to a traveling carnival, he's bewitched by the well-manicured and curiously horned Unicorn Woman. He makes it a point to attend every sideshow attraction he can in hopes of seeing the elusive creature once again. In the process, he becomes increasingly fascinated, even visiting a biology professor to ask about the Unicorn Woman's otherworldly anatomy. The core theme of the Unicorn Woman's mystery and allure is enticing, but Buddy's obsessive gaze tends to wear on the reader as the woman's own story remains underdeveloped. Still, Jones's rich characterizations and wit are on display elsewhere, including in Buddy's memories of his parents' concern after he attracted criticism from teachers for growing his hair out like his hero Frederick Douglass ("I know they had barber shops in Mr. Douglass's days and times," says his mother). This has its moments, but it doesn't quite hang together.
