{"title":"Jeffery Renard Allen","description":null,"products":[{"product_id":"song-of-the-shank-book-jeffery-renard-allen-9781555976804","title":"Song of the Shank","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eA contemporary American masterpiece about music, race, an unforgettable man, and an unreal America during the Civil War era\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e At the heart of this remarkable novel is Thomas Greene Wiggins, a nineteenth-century slave and improbable musical genius who performed under the name Blind Tom.\u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003eSong of the Shank\u003c\/i\u003e opens in 1866 as Tom and his guardian, Eliza Bethune, struggle to adjust to their fashionable apartment in the city in the aftermath of riots that had driven them away a few years before. But soon a stranger arrives from the mysterious island of Edgemere--inhabited solely by African settlers and black refugees from the war and riots--who intends to reunite Tom with his now-liberated mother.\u003cbr\u003e As the novel ranges from Tom's boyhood to the heights of his performing career, the inscrutable savant is buffeted by opportunistic teachers and crooked managers, crackpot healers and militant prophets. In his symphonic novel, Jeffery Renard Allen blends history and fantastical invention to bring to life a radical cipher, a man who profoundly changes all who encounter him.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49571583721745,"sku":"GOR007443952","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50390796304657,"sku":"CIN1555976808G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":51719156334865,"sku":"CIN1555976808VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1555976808.jpg?v=1751451677"},{"product_id":"rails-under-my-back-book-jeffery-renard-allen-9780374246266","title":"Rails Under My Back","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eWill put Allen in the company of writers such as James Joyce, August Wilson, and Ralph Ellison. --\u003c\/b\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003eThe Philadelphia Inquirer \u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eWhen it was first published fifteen years ago, Jeffery Renard Allen's debut novel, \u003ci\u003eRails Under My Back\u003c\/i\u003e, earned its author comparisons to some of the giants of twentieth-century modernism. The publication of Allen's equally ambitious second novel, \u003ci\u003eSong of the Shank\u003c\/i\u003e, cemented those lofty claims. Now, the book that established his reputation is being restored to print in its first Graywolf Press edition. Together, the two novels stand as significant achievements of twenty-first-century literature.\u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003eRails Under My Back\u003c\/i\u003e is an epic that tracks the interwoven lives of two brothers, Lucius and John Jones, who are married to two sisters, Gracie and Sheila McShan. For them, their parents, and their children, life is always full of departures; someone is always fleeing town and leaving the remaining family to suffer the often dramatic, sometimes tragic consequences. The multiple effects of the comings and goings are devastating: These are the almost mythic expression of the African American experience in the half century that followed the Second World War.\u003cbr\u003e The story ranges, as the characters do, from the city, which is somewhat like both New York and Chicago, to Memphis, to the West, and to many inner and outer locales. \u003ci\u003eRails Under My Back \u003c\/i\u003eis a multifaceted, brilliantly colored, intensely musical novel that pulses with urgency and originality.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ WELL_READ \/ SBYB","offer_id":49788395389201,"sku":"CIN0374246262A","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":49933204193553,"sku":"CIN0374246262G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0374246262.jpg?v=1751260140"},{"product_id":"fat-time-and-other-stories-book-jeffery-renard-allen-9781644452394","title":"Fat Time and Other Stories","description":"A ferocious, innovative story collection about Black lives in the past, present, and future.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ WELL_READ \/ SBYB","offer_id":49803486200081,"sku":"CIN1644452391A","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50191612641553,"sku":"CIN1644452391G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ GARDNERS","offer_id":50886785106193,"sku":"NGR9781644452394","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":51155438174481,"sku":"CIN1644452391VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":51885451608337,"sku":"GOR014445860","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1644452391.jpg?v=1751215013"},{"product_id":"holding-pattern-book-jeffery-renard-allen-9781555975098","title":"Holding Pattern","description":"The world of Jeffery Renard Allen's stunning short-story collection is a place like no other. A recognisable city, certainly, but one in which a man might sprout wings or copper pennies might fall from the skies on to one's head. Yet these are no fairy tales. The hostility and pain is all too human. Holding Pattern is a captivating collection by a prodigiously talented writer.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50381807550737,"sku":"CIN1555975097G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":53692883861777,"sku":"CIN1555975097VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1555975097.jpg?v=1751374082"},{"product_id":"rails-under-my-back-book-jeffery-renard-allen-9781555977238","title":"Rails Under My Back","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003e\"Will put Allen in the company of writers such as James Joyce, August Wilson, and Ralph Ellison.\" --\u003c\/b\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003eThe Philadelphia Inquirer\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/i\u003eWhen it was first published fifteen years ago, Jeffery Renard Allen's debut novel,\u003ci\u003eRails Under My Back\u003c\/i\u003e, earned its author comparisons to some of the giants of twentieth-century modernism. 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