The author of 1959, a Los Angeles Times Book Award nominee, returns with the tale of a woman's obsessive search for the truth behind her best friend's death. Alive with wit and sensibility, Maker of Saints is a fascinating and provocative novel about art, love, jealousy and friendship in a glitzy New York demimonde.

Starting from a photograph and writings left by her grandmother, acclaimed African-American novelist Thulani Davis goes looking for the "white folk" in her family, a Scots-Irish family of cotton planters unknown to her-and uncovers a history far richer and stranger than she had ever imagined. Her journey challenges us to examine the origins of some of our most deeply ingrained notions about what makes a family black or white, and offers an immensely compelling, intellectually challenging alternative.

Writing Himself Into History is an eagerly anticipated analysis of the career and artistry surrounding the legendary Black filmmaker Oscar Micheaux. With the exception of Spike Lee, Micheaux is the most famous--and prolific--African American film director. Between 1918 and 1948 he made more than 40 "race pictures," movies made for and about African Americans. A man of immense creativity, he also wrote seven novels.

Pearl Bowser and Louise Spence concentrate here on the first decade of Micheaux's career, when Micheaux produced and directed more than twenty silent features and built...