A review by ralowe
Brown Girl, Brownstones by Paule Marshall

5.0

had to ditch all my structuralist gripes with this one as marshall's storytelling hangs together so loose and free, and fraught with complexity that defies any easy cosmology. the *medicine for melancholy* part brought on some relief as i spose my mind hungers for patrilineal reason, thank you. if *the chosen place, the timeless people* grips with urgency this novel shrugs luxurious in nonplusment. my first day at the american studies association meeting my confirmed doppelganger nijah cunningham introduced this text to a paper he gave about the obscene affects of disembodiment and loss that accrue to the intrigue and edifice of barclays center in brooklyn and a ghostly installation that involves bill t. jones' movement minus blackness. during q-&-a i spastically requested what page cunningham's epigraph "only the dead know brooklyn," but i have the jank edition. i want to say something about bad parenting and jay z, but i'm not.