- Paperback: 1 pages
- Publisher: Bloomsbury US; 1 edition (Mar 20 2006)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 1596911484
- ISBN-13: 978-1596911482
- Product Dimensions: 23.5 x 16 x 3.5 cm
- Shipping Weight: 726 g
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #1,687,743 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- See Complete Table of Contents
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Product Details |
Product Description
From Publishers Weekly
Acclaimed novelist Beatty (Tuff; White Boy Shuffle) models this controversial anthology on a "mix-tape narrative dubbed by a trusted... friend." Like a mix-tape, the collection is intensely personal: its encompassing feature is the bright, plaintive, scathingly ironic voice that introduces the volume and its various sections. Beatty, who "was the butt of the first joke [he'd] ever heard," mines two centuries of African-American culture for speeches, poems, fiction, comics and screenplays that mirror his own glass-cutting wit and satisfy, in places, his taste for "unintentional comedy." (To wit, "The Wit and Wisdom of Mike Tyson.") Apart from usual suspects like Langston Hughes and Zora Neale Hurston, a Norton anthology this is not. Selections from Fran Ross and Prophet Omega dizzy readers in their logical funhouses. Hattie Gossett's "80s Version of the Dozens" leads them through sewer pipes of lyrical imagination. The volume's general tenor is wild, winking and explosive. As such, it picks up where Chappelle's Show left off—gouging the government, lampooning cultures black and white, leaving no sacred cow unslaughtered. Even the smiling watermelon on the book's front cover has been retained despite sniffs by national media outlets. "This is black humor," Beatty writes, "and I don't mean African-American black." Indeed, at times—as when John Farris's schoolchildren blithely gun down pedestrians—you may need night-vision goggles to find the joke. (Jan.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
Book Description
Selected and introduced by acclaimed novelist and poet Paul Beatty, Hokum is a liberating, eccentric, savagely comic collection of the funniest writing by black Americans.Eclectic in form and content, this sampler includes underground classics, rare grooves, timeless summer jams, poetry and prose juxtaposed with hip-hop, the blues, political speeches and the world's funniest radio sermon. Selections come from Zora Neale Hurston, Malcolm X, Langston Hughes, Ralph Ellison, Sojourner Truth, Al Sharpton, Spike Lee and more.
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Customer Reviews
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
5.0 out of 5 stars (3 customer reviews)
8 of 9 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
It's OK if I like this book too, right?, April 19 2006
By Frank Clover - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Hokum (Hardcover)
Just wondering. As a (typically?) paranoid Anglo-American, I may not "get" the secret messages in many of the selections that may or may not be there for an African-American reader, but I found most of the selections in this anthology hilarious. If it inspires anyone of any hyphenation to read complete works by Ishmael Reed or Chester Himes, it will have more than served its purpose.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
Hokum: Fun read, April 25 2010
By J. Loh - Published on Amazon.com
Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: Hokum (Hardcover)
Paul Beatty is one of my favorite writers. The intro is hilarious & thoughtful. The short pieces in this book are also very funny. You will enjoy this.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
ha ha, July 16 2009
By M. H. DAWKINS-ROSE - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Hokum (Paperback)
the anthology;s breadth is stunning, insofar as what counts as black, what counts as funny. in the forward Beatty says, if memory is true, that it's like a mixtape--reading the bits compiled on the 'playlist' give you a feeling of what informs Beatty's writing. Another bonus is almost none of this stuff is canonical; this publication is a treasure--from negritude to you!
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