Rafia Zafar

Home to Harlem is an evocative portrait of post-WW I Harlem, with an interlude on the Pennsylvania R R where Jake, the main character works for a time as a cook. A rich evocation of contemporary Black life in the North East, mostly free of plot but occasionally illuminated by philosophic musings on the part of Jake and his more educated and thoughtful Haitian friend Ray.

The heroine of Quicksand is first presented to us as a woman of rapid and contradictory mood-swings who seems torn between show more embracing her Black American identity and rejecting the confines it imposes. Her bi-racial heritage is treated as an objective explanation for her bi-polar personality. In Europe she is an exotic curiosity, cut off from Black culture; in America she finds that culture a prison. The ending shifts from Harlem to Alabama, and there is a brief hope that she will find meaning and purpose in a more traditional Black milieu, but this is yet another delusion. Critics frequently mention the autobiographical nature of this novel, which is a depressing thought. show less