Synopses & Reviews
This inspired collection of stories is cause for celebration. With stunning language and dazzling characters, Touré introduces Soul City a wholly imagined utopia where magic happens and black is beautiful. In a broad range of characterization and styles, The Portable Promised Land is filled with lighthearted humor and heavyhearted issues. Touré challenges form and what's considered politically correct in stories like "The Sad, Sweet Story of Sugar Lips Shinehot" and "Afrolexicolgy Today's Bi-Annual List of the Top 50 Words in African America." The Portable Promised Land marks the entrance of a new and wildly compelling voice to fiction.
Review
"Touré takes a measured yet whimsical look at the ups and (more often) downs of modern African-American life and culture in his successful debut collection....A few missteps aside, [he] should find an enthusiastic audience for his lively brand of social commentary." Publishers Weekly
Review
"24 mostly fast-moving pieces...that are usually stories but sometimes just wild long lists. Perhaps writing about ghetto fabulousness demands excess, and most of the time it works....Agreeably shocking, sharply perceptive, quite funny." Kirkus Reviews
Review
"[A] sharp celebration of black urban life, filled with characters at once surreal and familiar....Touré has given life in Soul City a comic edge, revealing the humor and absurdities behind the seriousness of race. Even the author's note and acknowledgments are fun to read." Library Journal
Review
"Perhaps staking out new ground for magical realism, Touré creates...a vibrant African American metropolis where stereotypes are reclaimed and transformed....Although these delightful works practically beg to be read aloud, several must work better on stage than on the page....Still, Touré is a talent to watch." Keir Graff, Booklist
Synopsis
With stunning language and dazzling characters, this debut by Toure introduces Soul City, a wholly imagined utopia where magic happens and black is beautiful.
Synopsis
Welcome to Soul City, the fictional American metropolis where magic is as natural as sunshine. With this inspired collection--in which irreverent humor and sharp-eyed social satire combine to produce unforgettable stories--Toure emerges as one of the most talented and inventive young writers at work today.
About the Author
Touré is a contributing editor at Rolling Stone. His fiction has appeared in The Source, Callaloo, and Zoetrope: All Story, where he won the Sam Adams Short Story Contest. His essays have been in The New Yorker, The New York Times, The New York Times Magazine, Tennis Magazine, Essence, George, and Playboy. He has been anthologized in the Best American Essays of 1999 and the Best American Sports Writing 2001. He attended Columbia's MFA program and lives in Brooklyn.
Table of Contents
Prologue 1
The Steviewondermobile 3
A Hot Time at the Church of Kentucky Fried: Souls and the Spectacular Final Sunday: Sermon of the Right Revren Daddy Love 9
The Breakup Ceremony 25
The Sad, Sweet Story of Sugar Lips Shinehot, the Man with the Portable Promised Land 32
Afrolexicology Today's Biannual List of the Top Fifty Words in African-America 47
Blackmanwalkin 60
Attack of the Love Dogma 63
My History 73
The Playground of the Ecstatically Blase 81
The African-American Aesthetics Hall of Fame, or 101 Elements of Blackness: (Things That'll Make You Say: Yes! That There's Some Really Black Shit!) 95
Solomon's Big Day: A Children's Story 105
It's Life and Death at the Slush Puppie Open 116
How Babe Ruth Saved My Life 124
We Words: My Favorite Things 133
Soul City Gazette Profile: Crash Jinkins, Last of the Chronic Crashees 142
A Guest! 149
You Are Who You Kill: The Black Widow Story 153
Young, Black, and Unstoppable, or Death of a Zeitgeist Jockey: The Black Widow Prequel and Sequel 168
Once an Oreo, Always on Oreo: The Black Widow Finale 186
The Commercial Channel: A Unique Business Opportunity 194
Falcon Malone Can Fly No Mo 201
The Sambomorphosis 218
They're Playing My Song 232
Yesterday Is So Long Ago 252
Shout-Outs 253