Soul City
A Novel
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4.2 • 9 Ratings
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- $9.99
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
From the wildly popular author of the groundbreaking debut The Portable Promised Land comes an inventive and hilarious first novel about an African-American utopia threatened by the darker side of human nature.
Welcome to Soul City, where roses bloom in the cracks of the sidewalk along Cornbread Boulevard, musical genres become political platforms, and children use their allowance money to buy records from the Vinyl Man. Its an unusually peaceful and magical American community with a strong heritage and sense of unity -- at least, thats how journalist Cadillac Jackson first finds it.
When Jackson visits Soul City on a magazine assignment, a mayoral election is imminent and candidates from opposing parties are battling to control the citys soundtrack. Amidst the increasingly hostile campaign, Cadillac falls for Mahogany Sunflower, a beautiful Soul Cityzen, and begins a struggle to shed the embattled African-American identity hes been taught to adopt, in order to exist in a community where the content of his character really does determine a black mans identity. What he discovers reveals as much about himself as it does about human nature and the meaning of race in America.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In a swamp of political mudslinging tomes, this charming and quirky fairy tale for grownups comes as a restful change. Stem-cell clashes? Foreign policy? Forget it. The mayoral race in Soul City hinges on one issue and one issue only: which candidate will make the best DJ, pumping the hippest music into the speakers that hang from every lamppost in the city. The citizens of this grooving utopia, which boasts "more mojo than any city in the world," are entirely separated from the rest of America, and they like it that way; it leaves them free to devour Granmama's biscuits by the bushel, drive around in cars that play only the driver's favorite singer, and attend St. Pimp's House of Baptist Rapture. When Cadillac Jackson, a journalist from Chocolate City magazine, arrives to write an article about the election, he promptly falls in love with the seductive Mahogany Sunflower, but even more so with the city itself the only place left in America where black really is beautiful. Imaginative, buoyant and slyly funny, this satire by magazine writer Tour (The Portable Promised Land) is a delight to read and a pleasure to hum along to.
Customer Reviews
I’m a Coolist, Now
In this uplifting, rambunctious, and elaborate work, Touré weaves a tale that is little on plot but humongous on story. Though tiny in size, the world of “Soul City” exposes the beauty and harshness of Black identity. By exhbiting the fullness and vibrancy of the African American experience, the novel delves into the mind and spirit of a people while encouraging the reader to laugh, cry, sing, and hope to fly. It is daring and sharp and takes the reader on a ride that even one of the Big Mamas would reccomend that everyone enjoy. It is a splendid piece of magic realism.