Such sweet thunder
By: Vincent O. Carter.
Publisher: Steerforth Press
Published: 2003
Place of publication: South Royalton, Vt
Language: eng
Number of pages: 537
Subjects: World War, 1939-1945 -- African Americans -- Fiction.; World War, 1939-1945 -- France -- Fiction.; African American soldiers -- Fiction.; African American men -- Fiction.; Americans -- France -- Fiction.; Jazz musicians -- Fiction.; Young men -- Fiction.; Kansas City (Kan.) -- Fiction.
Genres: Fiction.
Description: "Set in Kansas City, Missouri, during the Jazz Age of the 1920s and '30s, Such Sweet Thunder is a majestic evocation of childhood and parental love told through the eyes of a boy, Amerigo Jones. This unique and vivid portrait of an era marred by racial segregation and relentless, daily injustices is nonetheless rendered with love and longing for a time and place that was enriched by a vibrant, burgeoning, and widely influential African American culture and a fierce feeling for family and community." "Amerigo is just discovering, but not really understanding, racial prejudice. Like any growing boy, he is also learning about sexuality, art, literature, and life itself. He is a dreamer, and yet it is clear that many of his dreams will not come true, not because of who he is, but because of the color of his skin." "Completed in the 1960s, Vincent Carter was unable to find a publisher for his ambitious book, in part because it did not fit what publishers were looking for in the way of "Negro literature." But when Richard Wright's widow, Ellen, read it, she could hardly contain her enthusiasm, and finally said simply that such a tableau of childhood by a black man had never been done. By 1970 Carter had given up trying to find a publisher. He died in 1983, and his work came perilously close to disappearing without a trace."--BOOK JACKET.