High Cotton

by Darryl Pinckney

Book Overview

An elegant, insightful novel that evokes the world of upper-middle-class blacks, following an unnamed narrator from a safe childhood in conservative Indianapolis, to a brief tenure as minister of information for a local radical organization, to the life of an expatriate in Paris. Through it all, his imagination is increasingly dominated by his elderly relations and the lessons of their experiences in the "Old Country" of the South.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0374169985
• ISBN13: 9780374169985
• Release Date: February 1992
• Publisher: Farrar Straus Giroux
• Length: 320 Pages
• Weight: 1.30 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 6.3" x 9.3"

Customer Reviews

Exceptional writing

When I first read this, I took it to be a memoir because of some obvious overlap between Pinckney's personal history and that of his protagonist, but more especially because of the intense vividness and immediacy of the language. Learning it's a novel does nothing to change my high opinion of the book, which should be much better known/more widely read. Pinckney's got a powerful and striking prose style and it's also a fiercely intelligent book, one which takes nothing for granted. I'd group him with those essayists-novelists like Rebecca West, George Orwell and James Baldwin whose medium is prose rather than the novel per se; this book is well worth checking out.

excellent fiction

"High Cotton" is well written fiction by an author I'd like to see more work by. Pinckney is a "real" writer. By that I mean he knows how to use the language in an interesting way. It's not just a "what happens next" kind of book which, unfortunately, tends to be the norm in popular fiction by African-American writers. Just pick up a copy of any Terry Mcmillan book (with the exception of "Mama"), and you'll see what I mean. Read High Cotton to experience a black writer's voice, humor and wit, A family drama, a comedy, a social commentary, an excellent read