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Randall Kenan (1963 - )
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 A
Visitation of Spirits : A Novel by
Randall Kenan
In a remarkable first novel--uniquely conceived
and executed--Randall Kenan has created a vivid portrait of four
generations of a Southern black family in rural North Carolina.
Randall Kenan's daring and innovative first
novel weaves a vivid and horrific tale through the generations of
a black Southern family.
Sixteen-year old Horace Cross is plagued by issues that hover in
his impressionable spirit and take shape in his mind as loathsome
demons, culminating in one night of horrible and tragic
transformation. In the face of Horace's fate, his cousin Reverend
James "Jimmy" Green questions the values of a community
that nourishes a boy, places their hopes for salvation on him,
only to deny him his destiny.
Told in a montage of voices and memories, A Visitation of the
Spirits just how richly populated a family's present is with
the spirits of the past and the future.
"Marks the debut of a very gifted
writer.... Kenan speaks eloquently and with a great deal of
courage."-- Gloria Naylor
 Walking
on Water : Black American Lives at the Turn of the Twenty-First
Century by
Randall Kenan
This delicious and diverse sampler of African
American life culled from over 200 interviews by author Randall
Kenan shows that the American idea of "blackness" is as
vast as the United States itself and cannot be pinned down to
simplistic sociological clichés. "More than a book of
analysis," Kenan writes, "this is my book of soul
searching. I am asking who we are." Crisscrossing North
America, he visits some familiar settings--Oakland, New Orleans,
and New York--and some unusual places (including Bangor, Maine,
and Maidstone, Saskatchewan) to discover how everyday black folks
deal with issues of race, identity, and nationality. From a black
minister in Mormon Utah to a female judge in skinhead country to
the state of blacks in the would-be utopia of Seattle, Kenan
paints a revealing portrait of a people whose presence and
perseverance may forge a better America in the 21st century. --Eugene
Holley Jr. (Amazon.com)
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You're a gay black man. Do you see the black
community being more homophobic than or about the same as the rest
of America?
I'd like to say it depends on where you go. But
I think the truth is a lot of it has to do with the strength of
the African-American church. Whether or not people are going to
church doesn't matter. The church and its teachings ruled their
early thinking. With a lot of African-American men, and this is
true all over the country, machismo is very important in terms of
identity. Homophobia is a direct result of that. We're talking
about the military, we're talking about the labor force, and in
most blue-collar situations in this country you have this problem.
And I don't think it is more marked with blacks than with white
folk. But black communities are a bit more vocal (in their
homophobia), I would say, and guilty of a lack of support. A case
in point is the black church's response to AIDS, which was to
ignore it. As an institution, for all the wonderful things black
Christendom has done in this country, for it to totally ignore
such a large segment of the population is one of the most
unchristian things I've ever seen...
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From bickley.com
Excerpt:
Randall Kenan was born in Brooklyn, New York in
1963 and spent his childhood in Chinquapin, North Carolina. He
graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
where he received a B.A. in English in 1985. From 1985 to 1989 he
worked in the editorial staff of Alfred A. Knopf, publishers. In
1989 he began teaching writing at Sarah Lawrence College and
Columbia University, and was the first William Blackburn Visiting
Professor of Creative Writing at Duke University in the fall of
1994 and the Edouard Morot-Sir Visiting Professor of Creative
Writing at his alma mater in 1995. Mr. Kenan was the John and
Renee Grisham Writer-in-Residence at the University of
Mississippi, Oxford, and now teaches at the University of Memphis...
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Review by Adam Baron, The
Richmond Review
Excerpt:
After the success on both sides of the Atlantic
of Randall Kenan's second book Let the Dead Bury Their Dead,
Abacus have released his first novel A Visitation of Spirits,
in the UK. It is a composed and impressive debut which will both
cement and enhance the reputation Kenan has already made for
himself as a gifted and inventive magic realist...
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Names Index:
A B
C D
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G H
I J
K L
M N
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