Re: RARA-AVIS: Prison Writers

Robert E. Skinner (rskinner@mail.xula.edu)
Tue, 20 Oct 1998 08:48:24 -0500 > I agree with Robert Skinner that Himes' acolytes at Holloway House are
> not in the same league as Chester Himes, himself, but then again, who
> is. . . . However, Jess Mowry (Way Past Cool, Rats in the Trees and, published by Holloway, Children of the Night) and Nathan Heard (Howard Street and I think a few others are coming back into print) are both stylists who write well while telling stories that some might too easily dismiss as mere blaxploitation fare. >

I hope I did not sound as though I didn't admire the Holloway House
authors. Far from it. A novel the group might well consider for
discussion is Donald Goins's DADDY COOL. It may be the finest of all
the Holloway House novels, and certainly represents the kind of fare
that small house has offered over the years. These are men who knew
life in the ghetto from the ground up, and painted pictures as stark as
Himes did, with a sense of utter realism. You can forgive a certain
lack of facility in a prose style when you're being told a story by
someone with the same sense of drama these writers could instill.
Goins, in particular, could be as darkly ironic as Chandler when he was
at his best.

-- 
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Robert E. Skinner, Director
Xavier University of Louisiana Library
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e-mail: rskinner@mail.xula.edu
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