Negrophobia: An Urban Parable

by Darius James

Book Overview

A provocative, raucous dark comedy about race and racism in America, now back in print after twenty-five years and with a new preface by the author.

Darius James's scabrous, unapologetically raunchy, truly hilarious, and deeply scary Negrophobia is a wild-eyed reckoning with the mutating insanity of American racism. A screenplay for the mind, a performance on the page, a work of poetry, a mad mix of genres and styles, a novel in the tradition of William S. Burroughs and Ishmael Reed that is like no other novel, Negrophobia begins with the blonde bombshell Bubbles Brazil succumbing to a voodoo spell and entering the inner darkness of her own shiny being. Here crackheads parade in the guise of Muppets, Muslims beat conga drums, Negroes have numbers for names, and H. Rap Remus demands the total and instantaneous extermination of the white race through spontaneous combustion. By the end of it all, after going on a weird trip for the ages, Bubbles herself is strangely transformed.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1681373297
• ISBN13: 9781681373294
• Release Date: February 2019
• Publisher: New York Review of Books
• Length: 208 Pages
• Weight: 0.20 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 5.0" x 7.9"

Customer Reviews

Negrophobia

I personally think James is a journalistic genius! The book was excellent. Anyone who gave this book a bad rating has his/her own issues about race relations. Darius James found an artistic way to define how we as individuals subconciously think and cope with regard to dealing with people of opposing races. This book is definitely a winner. I recommend this to everyone.

One of the funniest books ever written

In one passage of Negrophobia, the rotting corpse of Malcolm X (referred to as "the rotting corpse of Malcolm X")does the "Time Warp" from the Rocky Horror Picture Show, and each occasion of "time warp" is replaced with "swine pork". This book is full of similar hilariously bloodthirsty satires. The humor is very offensive (to most races I can think of) and will have you either gasping in horror or rolling on the floor. The comedy value of this book is extraordinary, but there's much more to it as well: it is genuinely insightful, original and provoking when it comes to the philosophy and history of race relations in America.

The best novel of the last ten years....

This novel brings every steryotype to life in an energized and hyper-real format that is more along the lines of a Terry Gilliam movie than it is any other 'novel' that I have ever read. First: this may be the funniest book ever written. Although at times it is harsh and scatological, it is just.... funny..... In the way that the author switches from style to style (a la Joyce at his finest... or Ballard at his....) you have avant-guarde literature at its best. Adding to this, it has the kind of humor and brilliance that would be brought by an author whose other major work was on..... Blacksploitation....I never put this book down once I picked it up... till I had it read.... twice....Someone who really liked this book might also like the music of Keith Thorton (a.k.a. Kool Keith, Dr. Dooom, Dr. Octagon). The two men are cut from the same mold.... though James might be at least (partially) sane....

Fantastically enthralling....it draws you in

I thought is was possibly the most far-fetched but not entirely unreal and untrue take on racism and the way some Caucasians see Afro-Americans. I thought it was brilliant, funny, and I couldn't take my hands off of it until after reading it the whole way through. And I fully intend to read it again.

Busta Rhymes, you dun RIPPED OFF dis brother.

The children may leave the reading room now.If anyone wants to read a Hype Williams video come to life, this is it...and a half decade earlier than the musical version to boot.