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A visitation of spirits
272 pages
A haunting, time-leaping exploration of a tormented teenager's darkest night, woven into the rich, unvarnished history of a Southern black family.
What it feels like
This novel offers a powerful, unvarnished reading experience that balances the vivid naturalism of Southern farm life with a haunting strain of mysticism. The narrative is anchored by a tense, tormented night where literal and imagined demons force a brilliant teenager to confront his sexuality and his family's closed-mindedness. As the protagonist careens toward disaster, the story leaps through time, expanding into a rich saga of four generations struggling for enlightenment and understanding. The prose is striking and confident, delivering passages of immense strength even as it executes jarring shifts in time and tone. It is a deeply felt journey perfect for readers who gravitate toward complex, emotionally raw explorations of queer identity, generational weight, and personal awakening.
- Mood
- tormented
- haunting
- vivid
- tense
- Tone
- unvarnished
- powerful
- mystical
- naturalistic
- Pace
- steady
- Themes
- queer identity and belonging · generational expectations · personal awakening · mysticism versus reality · family closed-mindedness
- The writing
- Rich and naturalistic, blending vivid details of farm life with powerful, sometimes jarring, leaps through time and tone.
- The arc
- A tormented descent into personal demons that expands into a multi-generational search for understanding and enlightenment.
- Who it's for
- Readers who appreciate unvarnished, mystical family sagas that tackle the painful intersections of queer identity and generational expectations.
Content notes
- homophobia
- internalized homophobia
- mental distress
- demonic imagery
About the book
From Publishers Weekly As its title suggests, a powerful strain of mysticism runs through this story of personal awakening in a black North Carolina family, but first-time novelist Kenan has a rare gift for naturalism as well, capturing the texture of farm life with vivid detail. The novel follows Horace Cross, a brilliant, tormented teenager who is his family's greatest hope, through a night when demons--perhaps literal, perhaps imagined--force him to confront his bleakest thoughts. Revolted by his homosexuality, flummoxed by his nonconformity and resentful of his family's closed-mindedness, Horace careens toward disaster, while in scenes that leap through time, we meet the other generations of the Cross family. Kenan shapes his novel as a series of struggles for understanding and enlightenment, contrasting Horace's strife with an older cousin's efforts to understand him. Although shifts in time and tone are often jarring and sometimes gratuitous, the strength and richness of Kenan's best passages sweep any objections aside. Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Review "Randall Kenan continues [James] Baldwin's legendary tradition of 'telling it on the mountain' by giving voice to the unvarnished truth about blacks and homosexuality." --San Francisco Chronicle
"A gifted, confident writer." --The Raleigh News & Observer
From the Publisher 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.
"A Visitation Of Spirits marks the debut of a very gifted writer."--Gloria Naylor
From the Inside Flap: 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.
Description from Open Library.
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