Yellow Back Radio Broke-Down (Masterplots II: African American Literature Series)
At a glance:
- Author: Ishmael Reed
- First Published: 1969
- Type of Work: Novel
- Type of Plot: Satire
- Time of Work: Primarily the nineteenth century
- Setting: The imaginary town of Yellow Back Radio, near Video Junction
- Principal Characters: Loop Garoo Kid, Drag Gibson, Bo Shmo, Chief Showcase, Mustache Sal, Skinny McCullough
- Genres: Long fiction
- Subjects: African Americans
- Locales: Washington, D.C.
The Novel
Yellow Back Radio Broke-Down is at once Reed’s revelation of his new aesthetic, called “Neo-HooDooism,” and his answer to some of his most acerbic critics, both white and African American. Reed constantly averts generic expectations in the novel, so it is difficult to define the work with any precision. It is a cowboy story that overturns the traditions of the television Western, a science-fiction/fantasy novel about real-life politics during the 1960’s, and a historical novel that denies the accepted meanings of Euro-American history. Reed’s novel...
[The entire page is 2472 words long]
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