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Follows Amerigo Jones from his boyhood in Kansas City, Missouri, surrounded by loving parents, a vibrant African American community, and big band jazz, through his service in World War II and life as an expatriate, as he comes to terms with racism.

Completed in 1963 by an American expatriate living in Switzerland, this portrait of an African American childhood in Depression-era Kansas City, MO, has only now been published, 20 years after the author's death. Carter follows the life of Amerigo Jones from infancy to his last year in high school, during which he is dominated by his attractive but sometimes foolish mother, Viola; his strict, hard-working father, Rutherford; and his first love, Cosima, who chooses wealth and position over Amerigo's devotion. Amerigo's journey is surreal at first, as the voices of his childhood float in and out of consciousness, blurring his early years. Infused with the sounds and spirit of Kansas City jazz, the narrative becomes more traditional as Amerigo grows older and his family must face the hardships of poverty and the overt and rampant racism of 1930s America. The author's gritty style was ahead of its time, which may be why the book languished in obscurity for so long. While the length and confusing first pages may intimidate some readers, those that stay will find a satisfying read. For most public libraries.-Ellen Flexman, Indianapolis-Marion Cty. P.L., IN Copyright 2003 Cahners Business Information.

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Written in 1963 and shelved, this hefty, astonishing novel by a black American expatriate who died in 1983 tells-in electric modernist vernacular prose-the story of a black child's life in Jim Crow America. In France during WWII, soldier Amerigo Jones thinks back on his youth in the 1920s and '30s in a black community resembling the author's native Kansas City. At first, the members of his extended family are presented as a chorus of voices fading in and out: his lovely, luxury-craving mother, Viola; his stern, dapper bellhop father, Rutherford; his grandmother and a bevy of aunts. After this short stream-of-consciousness section, the novel settles into a fluent, easy chronological narrative weighted toward the dreamy, determined Amerigo's early childhood, but stretching all the way to his graduation from high school. Through a steady accumulation of detail ("Five o'clock. Supper: hot dog sandwiches, salad, and beer for them and strawberry soda-pop for him"), sustained lyricism ("Fat round A's, B's, and C's spread out over the ruled spaces of his mind"), flights of fancy ("And he was the Swan Prince! `Wauk! Wauk!' He cried plaintively, his heart beating violently") and, especially, reams of swinging dialogue (" `A man reads this paper an' gits fightin' mad! Waitaminute!' "), Carter paints an uncommonly rich picture of black American family life in the early 20th century. Like the composition it is named for, a Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn tribute to Shakespeare, it is a marvelous blend of jazz rhythms and high literary tradition. (Apr. 15) Forecast: Carter may be neglected, but he has never been entirely forgotten. An essay on his only previously published work, The Bern Book: A Record of the Voyage of the Mind, about his life as the only black man in Bern, Switzerland, was included in Darryl Pinckney's Out There: Mavericks of Black Literature (2002). This novel could very well spark a revival of interest in this underappreciated writer. Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.