Color

<p>In 1991 acclaimed poet Kenneth A. McClane published <i>Walls: Essays 1985-1990</i> a volume of essays dealing with life in Harlem the death of his alcoholic brother and the complexities of being black and middle-class in America. Now in <i>Color: Essays on Race Family and History</i> McClane contributes further to his self-described autobiographical sojourn with a second collection of interconnected essays. In McClane's words All concern race although they like the human spirit wildly sweep and yaw. A timely installment in our national narrative Color is a chronicle of the black middle class a group rarely written about with sensitivity and charity. In evocative trenchant and poetic prose McClane employs the art of the memoirist to explore the political and the personal. He details the poignant narrative of racial progress as witnessed by his family during the 1950s '60s and '70s. We learn of his parents' difficult upbringing in Boston where they confronted much racism; of the struggles they and McClane encountered as they became the first blacks to enter previously all-white institutions including the oldest independent school in the United States; and of the part his parents played in the civil rights movement working with Dr. King and others. The book ends with a tender account of his parents in the throes of Alzheimer's disease which claimed both their lives.</p> <p>Ken McClane's latest collection proves that he is one of the finest essayists currently plying the trade. Graceful incisive humane Ken's writing is both beautifully wrought and deeply informative about how we live life. All of us practicing essayists can only marvel in delight at his skill and envy his accomplishment. I have known Ken since my days in graduate school over twenty-five years ago and I still feel now as I felt then: when I grow up I want to be half the writer Ken McClane is.-Gerald L. Early author of <i>The Culture of Bruising: Essays on Prizefighting Literature and Modern American Culture</i> and <i>This is Where I Came In: Black America in the 1960s</i></p> <p>Kenneth McClane's voice is unique in American letters: pragmatic; contemplative; intriguingly moody; at times unabashedly and movingly sentimental. He chronicles a world of black people that is little-known and even less-imagined. <i>Color</i> is a wonderful book of beautifully written understated essays by an important writer who has steadily contributed to American letters.-Elizabeth Alexander Yale University</p> <p>Kenneth McClane argues that the inclusion of a jazz phrase in the midst of another obviously discrete modality becomes an act of communion that 'honors the fragile possibility for mutuality.' He is right for he does this skillfully in <i>Color</i>. An exciting find the volume is a compendium of sophisticated essays rendered with deceptive simplicity. <i>Color</i> always insightful sometimes inexplicably tender is that rare volume seldom encountered that moves us beyond measure.-Mari Evans author of <i>Continuum: New and Selected Poems</i> and <i>Clarity as Concept: A Poet's Perspective</i></p> <p>The essays that comprise <i>Color</i> are mighty in their directed honesty and uncompromising views of the lived racialized world observed with an intellectual curiosity and wise generosity that astonishes on every page. Through it all the words hum with love so that even the pained heart sings.-Helena Maria Viramontes author of <i>Their Dogs Came With Them</i></p>