Review: Very Compelling!
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 05 3, 2014
Just how many emotions and thoughts can you pack into a short story?  Apparently the number is infinite, if you’re M.B. Munroe.  His story The Last Black Man is introspective and moving, and also much more intricate than I was expecting, back when I was glancing at the cover and judging a book by its length.  It is a story of race relations, family history, and personal crisis, all at once.The Last Black Man paints a brilliantly-hued painting of life for a black man struggling to support his family and simultaneously create identity for them in London society.  With the voice of a defiant prisoner, the narrator walks us through three generations and a broad sweep of history, all without distancing us from the crucial moment he has found himself in.I found myself most impressed by the amount of character-backstory and even world history that the author was able to skilfully slip into so few words, without ever creating a ripple of disharmony within the narrative.  It lends his narrator more than just an introspective attitude, and makes the reader really feel what it would be like to live with such an intense and personal connection to history.  And the character’s relations to his family members – especially to his wife and son – came through with equal clarity and strength.  There are no wasted words, here, to be sure, but every line serves to open another window into a very compelling human psyche.  My one regret is that this work isn’t longer – I would gladly have read a full-length novel based around the three generations this narrator spreads out and analyses for us.Thoreau said that “most men lead lives of quiet desperation …”  Munroe’s ‘last black man’ is a man leading a life of quiet insurgency, and I’m very glad I got this brief chance to meet him.