Description
Book SynopsisBoondock Kollage: Stories from the Hip Hop South is a collection of twelve short stories that addresses issues of race, place, and identity in the postCivil Rights American South. Using historical, spectral, and hip hop infused fiction, Boondock Kollage critically engages readers to question the intersections of regionalism and black culture in current American society.
Trade Review"Boondock Kollage is an intricate collection of stories that will be new yet deeply familiar to any reader. These tales are new because they take place in rural Georgia, in a specific tree and lake studded landscape peopled with small, particular communities; they are familiar because the characters that people this place, with their wide, sloped shoulders, their intricate wigs, the way they shuffle and joke and comfort and misunderstand and shore each other up, are achingly human. In Bradley's hands, these varied pieces cohere into a deeply compelling, moving work of art. This collection will be deeply satisfying for the reader who wants to experience the full range of human emotion, who wants to feel fear, triumph, bone-deep sadness, and bright joy, because this author does it all." Jesmyn Ward, Associate Professor of English, Tulane University; author of Men We Reaped and Salvage the Bones
"Regina Bradley is a gifted writer who makes contemporary southern black life visible and viable. She writes us as our beautiful, black, redeemable selves. Boondock Kollage is a masterful collection of twelve short stories that introduces Bradley as an up-and-coming storyteller who's been hearing and telling stories all of her life. This is her heart project, and she gives us her heart. The intimacy and familiarity from which she writes southern black life not only humanizes us, it loves (on) us. Her carefully crafted prose gives a glimpse of black folk and black life in the post–Civil Rights black South, offering a mirror so we can see ourselves and our memories in line after line, page after page, story after story. You will carry her stories, her characters, and her characterizations with you. They feel like home. They feel like us. They feel like ours." Robin M. Boylorn, Associate Professor of Interpersonal and Intercultural Communication, The University of Alabama; author of Sweetwater: Black Women and Narratives of Resilience
Table of ContentsKiese Laymon: Foreword – Prologue: Reckoning – Acknowledgments – Part One: Reaching Back Around – A Visitation from Grace – Intentions – Between the Hedges – Good Bleach – Part Two: Long Division – Beautiful Ones – Happy Feelins – Splish-Splash – Skin Carnival – As Above So Below – Part Three: Stitches in Time – The Apothecary – Moving Furniture – Some Kind of Wonderful (Illustrated by John Jennings and Stacey Robinson) – Discussion Question Bank.
