chamblyman's review against another edition
4.0
McSweeney's Diaspora series beautifully reissues this treasure from 1978. In Tragic Magic Brown fashioned a gritty yet exquisitely crafted portrait of African American masculinity of that fraught time that only seems more relevant today. Imagine Catcher In The Rye mashed up with HBO's Oz, or Ralph Ellison rewiring early Phillip Roth. Narrator Mouth is a wonderfully complex character, coming of age through the Vietnam War era, Black Panthers style counterculture, prison, college, New York City, and the opposite sex. For fans of Spike Lee, Paul Beatty, Junot Diaz and Colson Whitehead.
goldxnapplxs's review
4.0
I think this would be a good book to introduce into freshman college classes. Not only is the writing style and story telling timeline of this story interesting, the main character and his “friend” present a look at masculinity, forced drafting during the Vietnam war, and being a black man on top of all that.
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