Tragic Magic

Meet Melvin Ellington, a.k.a. Mouth - a Black twenty-something, ex-college radical who has just been released from a five-year prison stretch having been a conscientious objector to the Vietnam War. Back in New York, hungry for freedom and desperate for companionship, Mouth quickly finds himself haunted by his past. Through a filmic series of flashbacks, we see Mouth's time in prison, his college days and, finally, his earliest high school days. Each street corner, subway ride and run-in with an old flame brings with it the echo of his previous life. The rhythm of blues and jazz is baked into each page, with the sounds of the city barbershop talk, lively gossip, overheard conversations imprinted in every word. Wesley Brown boldly explores magnetic representations of Black masculinity in crisis, with a style that's even more provoking than its subject.