Darktown Strutters Book

Darktown Strutters cuts to the cruel center of American racialism. Wesley Brown's traveling minstrel show is where the symbolism of skin color establishes public meaning and private identity the way a funhouse mirror measures height and weight. Like Melville's The Confidence Man, this is a scary book, and mordantly funny, too. We all look ridiculous in it and, sad to say, instantly recognizable.

About the Authors:

Wesley Brown is author of the novel Tragic Magic, two plays, and coeditor of two multicultural anthologies. He teaches literature and creative writing at Rutgers University.

W. T. Lhamon Jr. is professor of English at Florida State University and author of Raising Cain: Blackface Performance from Jim Crow to Hip Hop.

Darktown Strutters is the story of Jim Crow, a remarkable dancer, born in slavery, who performs in minstrel shows, South and North, during the furious times of pre- and post- Civil War America. Touching, harrowing, and inspiring, Darktown Strutters is a unique novel of courage and pride from the author of Tragic Magic.