Runner Mack (Masterplots II: African American Literature Series)
At a glance:
- Author: Barry Beckham
- First Published: 1972
- Type of Work: Novel
- Type of Plot: Social criticism
- Time of Work: The early 1970’s
- Setting: An unnamed Northern city, Mississippi, Alaska, and the Pacific Northwest
- Principal Characters: Henry Adams, Beatrice Mark Adams, Runnington (Runner) Mack
- Genres: Long fiction, Absurdist literature
- Subjects: Maturation or coming of age, 1960’s, United States or Americans, Suicide, Revolutions, Vietnam War, War
- Locales: United States
The Novel
A nightmare vision of the African American experience, Runner Mack fittingly opens with Henry Adams dreaming of a painful encounter with a dentist. Awakening to discover a leaking ceiling to be the source of his nightmare, Henry soon finds himself in a violent encounter with Alvarez, the building superintendent. Alvarez’s refusal to speak English, his having stolen Henry’s pajamas, and his using a guard dog to protect him from the tenant quickly establish the motifs of the inability to communicate, exploitation, oppression, and Henry’s general sense of...
[The entire page is 2983 words long]
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