Brian Plunkett reviewed A different drummer by William Melvin Kelley
A Different Drummer
4 stars
I thought this book was pretty stunning. I decided to read it after seeing John Warner (AKA The Biblioracle) say that it "should absolutely be considered a great American classic."
It has some flaws -- for example, I thought it was somewhat sexist and didn't always succeed when he was writing from a woman character's perspective (although the Dymphna Willson chapter, describing a detailed interaction between Dymphna and Bethera, was very good).
The chapter focused on David, a white student who becomes close friends with a black student at college, was amazing. I didn't realize it until reading this New Yorker article after I finished the book, but the entire story is told exclusively through the eyes of white people.
The image of all the black people leaving the state is really burned into my mind. (I don't think that plot development is a spoiler, since I've seen it prominently …
I thought this book was pretty stunning. I decided to read it after seeing John Warner (AKA The Biblioracle) say that it "should absolutely be considered a great American classic."
It has some flaws -- for example, I thought it was somewhat sexist and didn't always succeed when he was writing from a woman character's perspective (although the Dymphna Willson chapter, describing a detailed interaction between Dymphna and Bethera, was very good).
The chapter focused on David, a white student who becomes close friends with a black student at college, was amazing. I didn't realize it until reading this New Yorker article after I finished the book, but the entire story is told exclusively through the eyes of white people.
The image of all the black people leaving the state is really burned into my mind. (I don't think that plot development is a spoiler, since I've seen it prominently mentioned in many descriptions of the book.)
There is only one copy of this book in our library system, and the library that owns it won't let users from other libraries borrow it. :-( But luckily I was able to get it from the Cloud Library.