Harry Sylvester Bird: A Novel (Paperback)
Harry Sylvester Bird is a powerful story about the kind of racism that disguises as love and desire for black bodies, black life, and black pain.... The desire for racial metamorphosis is at the heart of the story. It opens a space where Okparanta examines the many forms that racism can take.... Parts of the novel are laugh-out-loud funny. The satire is deliciously biting. The pacing of the narration is perfect. The writing is spare and stunning.... [T]he (very) near-future speculative element in the story gives the novel its distinct feel.... [Harry Sylvester Bird] reprises the same bold elegance with which Okparanta engaged homophobia many years ago. With this new novel, she is still asking readers to confront the unexamined assumptions that blur their vision of the world." - The Herald
From the award-winning author of Under the Udala Trees and Happiness, Like Water comes a brilliant, provocative, up-to-the-minute satirical novel about a young white man's education and miseducation in contemporary America.
Harry Sylvester Bird grows up in Edward, Pennsylvania, with his parents, Wayne and Chevy, whom he greatly dislikes. They're racist, xenophobic, financially incompetent, and they have quite a few secrets of their own. To Harry, they represent everything wrong with this country. And his small town isn't any better. He witnesses racial profiling, graffitied swastikas, and White Power signs on his walk home from school. He can't wait until he's old enough to leave. When he finally is, he moves straight to New York City, where he feels he can finally live out his true inner self.
In the city, he meets and falls in love with Maryam, a young Nigerian woman. But when Maryam begins to pull away, Harry is forced to confront his identity as he never has before—if he can.
Brilliant, funny, original, and unflinching, Harry Sylvester Bird is a satire that speaks to all the most pressing tensions and anxieties of our time—and of the history that has shaped us and might continue to do so.
Harry Sylvester Bird is a powerful story about the kind of racism that disguises as love and desire for black bodies, black life, and black pain.... The desire for racial metamorphosis is at the heart of the story. It opens a space where Okparanta examines the many forms that racism can take.... Parts of the novel are laugh-out-loud funny. The satire is deliciously biting. The pacing of the narration is perfect. The writing is spare and stunning.... [T]he (very) near-future speculative element in the story gives the novel its distinct feel.... [Harry Sylvester Bird] reprises the same bold elegance with which Okparanta engaged homophobia many years ago. With this new novel, she is still asking readers to confront the unexamined assumptions that blur their vision of the world." - The Herald
From the award-winning author of Under the Udala Trees and Happiness, Like Water comes a brilliant, provocative, up-to-the-minute satirical novel about a young white man's education and miseducation in contemporary America.
Harry Sylvester Bird grows up in Edward, Pennsylvania, with his parents, Wayne and Chevy, whom he greatly dislikes. They're racist, xenophobic, financially incompetent, and they have quite a few secrets of their own. To Harry, they represent everything wrong with this country. And his small town isn't any better. He witnesses racial profiling, graffitied swastikas, and White Power signs on his walk home from school. He can't wait until he's old enough to leave. When he finally is, he moves straight to New York City, where he feels he can finally live out his true inner self.
In the city, he meets and falls in love with Maryam, a young Nigerian woman. But when Maryam begins to pull away, Harry is forced to confront his identity as he never has before—if he can.
Brilliant, funny, original, and unflinching, Harry Sylvester Bird is a satire that speaks to all the most pressing tensions and anxieties of our time—and of the history that has shaped us and might continue to do so.
Harry Sylvester Bird is a powerful story about the kind of racism that disguises as love and desire for black bodies, black life, and black pain.... The desire for racial metamorphosis is at the heart of the story. It opens a space where Okparanta examines the many forms that racism can take.... Parts of the novel are laugh-out-loud funny. The satire is deliciously biting. The pacing of the narration is perfect. The writing is spare and stunning.... [T]he (very) near-future speculative element in the story gives the novel its distinct feel.... [Harry Sylvester Bird] reprises the same bold elegance with which Okparanta engaged homophobia many years ago. With this new novel, she is still asking readers to confront the unexamined assumptions that blur their vision of the world." - The Herald
From the award-winning author of Under the Udala Trees and Happiness, Like Water comes a brilliant, provocative, up-to-the-minute satirical novel about a young white man's education and miseducation in contemporary America.
Harry Sylvester Bird grows up in Edward, Pennsylvania, with his parents, Wayne and Chevy, whom he greatly dislikes. They're racist, xenophobic, financially incompetent, and they have quite a few secrets of their own. To Harry, they represent everything wrong with this country. And his small town isn't any better. He witnesses racial profiling, graffitied swastikas, and White Power signs on his walk home from school. He can't wait until he's old enough to leave. When he finally is, he moves straight to New York City, where he feels he can finally live out his true inner self.
In the city, he meets and falls in love with Maryam, a young Nigerian woman. But when Maryam begins to pull away, Harry is forced to confront his identity as he never has before—if he can.
Brilliant, funny, original, and unflinching, Harry Sylvester Bird is a satire that speaks to all the most pressing tensions and anxieties of our time—and of the history that has shaped us and might continue to do so.