Here is a brilliant new collection of essays on the sublime and the ridiculous in contemporary American culture and society, by one of the most important and compelling social commentators at work today.

"Fearless and engaging, a virtuoso at bringing the drive of natural speech into social criticism, Stanley Crouch transcends our usual racial divides to write in behalf of any and every American who will read him. Always in Pursuit is irresistible commentary on the American condition just now."

--Alfred Kazin

"Stanley Crouch heads right toward issues that other writers shy away from; he is almost scarily fearless. Reading him is like watching a sharpshooter--when he misses, it adds to the showmanship."                        

--Pauline Kael

Brash, teasing, belligerent and tender, Crouch knows what he is talking about and he says what he means. When he writes about Duke Ellington or Albert Murray, John Ford or Ralph Ellison, that knowledge and truthfulness make it clear that you don't have to agree with him to learn from him."

--Robert Pinsky, Poet Laureate

"Stanley Crouch once again proves himself to be a major iconoclast. His words prick the pages, provoking, irritating, prodding us to question our own easy assumptions on race, sex, politics, art, jazz, history, civilization, you-name-it. His pursuit becomes our own, as we see our world through his bold eyes."

--Linda Chavez

"The essay on O. J. Simpson is among the most sensible and incisive writing from the mountain of commentary that that unfortunate case has produced. Crouch remains one of our most formidable social and literary critics."

--Gerald Early

"Always in Pursuit is everything I love about the brilliant Stanley Crouch. In his hands the essay becomes a great jazz riff on the page--social commentary rightly done as a singular 'I'. Written by a passionately determined believer in the American possibility, this collection of essays is wide ranging, fiercely opinionated, elegantly composed, purposefully challenging. Be prepared."

--Marcia Gillespie, Editor-in-Chief, Ms. Magazine

From the Trade Paperback edition.

"Stanley Crouch is jazzy, breezy, and playful. He is, however, deeply serious as well. He views himself--appropriately--as essentially American, and understands that in this country Black history is inseparable from the history of the American nation. He is moreover willing to reject the taboos which restrict the free discussion of racial and other social questions. He understands that comic playfulness, satire or jazziness must not be abandoned to demagogues we are seeing on TV or reading about in the papers."-Saul Bellow

"Stanley Crouch once again proves himself to be a major iconoclast. His words prick the pages, provoking, irritating, prodding us to question our own easy assumptions on race, sex, politics, art, jazz, history, civilization, you name it. His pursuit becomes our own, as we see our world through his bold eyes."-Linda Chavez

From the Trade Paperback edition.

Stanley Crouch is a contributing editor to The New Republic, a Sunday columnist for the New York Daily News, and a frequent panelist on The Charlie Rose Show. He is the author of The All-American Skin Game (which was nominated for a National Book Critics Circle Award) and Notes of a Hanging Judge. For years a jazz critic and staff writer for the Village Voice, he is Artistic Consultant to Jazz at Lincoln Center. He lives in New York City.

From the Trade Paperback edition.