Archive for April 3, 2011
PYM by Mat Johnson
Chris Jaynes has just been fired from his position as the token black professor at a prestigious liberal arts college, and retaliates by visiting the president and snatching off his red bow tie. This none-too-subtle reference to the preferred attire of Leon Botstein, president of Bard College where author Mat Johnson also taught, launches the book as a satire, but gives little hint of the likability of its hero or the fascination of the study of race that will follow. Johnson turns the subject inside out, standing it on its head, looking at race with an outrageous accuracy whose aim falls on black and white alike. Forgive me, therefore, if I set the comedy aside for the moment and concentrate on the book’s intellectual underpinnings.
Much of the debate concerns the nature of blackness itself, beginning with the protagonist’s own racial identity.
April 3, 2011
· 
Judi Clark · 
No Comments
Tags: Contemporary, Humorous · Posted in: Class - Race - Gender, Contemporary, Humorous, Mash Up, Satire, Unique Narrative
