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Library Journal Review

As controversial as ever, Bell (Confronting Authority, LJ 9/15/94) has written a series of parables using fictional characters to voice his progressive views. He blasts racism, the Republicans' Contract with America, and The Bell Curve; he makes a statement on affirmative action and comments briefly on the October 1995 Million Man March in Washington, D.C. His first story concerns a bizarre tale of aliens he calls "space traders" who have come to Earth to take away all African Americans. The next tale is a debate with a fictitious conservative talk-show host named Biff Rightwing, whose ruthless audience forces Bell to defend himself. In subsequent chapters, he has several conversations with a limo driver named Jesse Semple, who becomes his mentor and speaks candidly on the issues of the day. In the meantime he is watched over constantly by Geneva Crenshaw, who's like his guardian angel. He also touches on relationships between the sexes, giving a boost to black women for their strength, courage, and understanding. Even though careless editing puts a damper on the smooth flow of these essays, the book has merit for African American collections and academics with a sense of humor.-Ann Burns, "Library Journal" (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Publishers Weekly Review

Can gospel music-emanating from black culture but speaking with a universal optimism-be employed to find solutions to the poverty and racial hostility that constitute black America's "greatest crisis since the end of Reconstruction?" In this innovative collection of essays and parables that include his fictional lawyer Geneva Crenshaw (this is the third of his Geneva Chronicles, after Faces at the Bottom of the Well), legal scholar Bell uses storytelling and gospel music references to attempt new insights. His style sometimes devolves into didactic speechifying or predictable dissing (taking on Rush Limbaugh types), but he makes resonant points. He criticizes what he sees as the spurious logic behind the Contract with America and The Bell Curve. He reminds us of the rich legacy of those, like Paul Robeson, who dissented from black leadership. He imagines himself in a race riot, after which fellow blacks find liberation by reinterpreting the racist slogan "Nigger Free" as symbol rather than curse. Most interesting are his characters' modest proposals for a monitor to tax America's use of "cultural expressions of subordinated peoples of color," and for a shield to ensure nonexploitive sex among black folk. In the end, Bell's somewhat scattershot approach to issues is more metaphorical than practical, but that's why he's chosen this alternative style, and his voice still has wisdom. Author tour. (June) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved