From the early days of minstrelsy to Black Broadway, this book is the story of African American entertainment as seen through the eyes of its most famous as well as some of its most obscure practitioners. The book forms a chronological arc that moves from the beginning of African American participation in show business up through the present age. Will Marion Cook and Billy McClain are discovered in action at the very dawn of black parity in the entertainment field; six chapters later, the young Sammy Davis Jr. breaks through the invisible ceiling that has kept those before him 'in their...

A collection of mainly award-winning or hightly-commended short stories from national competitions. Extinction is forever, give or take a day. And there's always Redemption trying to take that one precious minute of your time.

"This secretive load I have shuffled around with..." ---------- John Tasker is a divided, but enjoined, man. Physically he is running from the law while hunting down his own father, just as his father used to track down the wild tuskers in Sri Lanka. At the same time, mentally, he is tracking down his murderous brother's enemies, imaginably or not, with a deadly efficiency. Adding to his confusion is how his indolent lawyer's job in the Attorney-General's Department has itself suddenly become fraught with danger for his own personal safety. The resultant clash that erupts between his...

'You have the stigmata, ' his grip firming when she tries to pull her hand away. 'So have I. The scar across my eye, you see.' -------------- Take a hermit, innocent, Christ-like, withdrawn, foreign-looking, non-English-speaking; then place him where the innocent are getting raped in an insular community. The result is awful predictability amid cries of 'no more '. But the rapes continue until the rapist is caught. Remove a hermit, innocent, Christ-like, withdrawn, foreign-looking, non-English-speaking, to the desolate mainland. Let the child of the rapist follow (why?) to the desolate...

'I not only write books. I am this book. The actual person or persons.' ----------- After a flash flood in 1965 an elderly man became trapped down a Sydney parkland storm drain. Children discovered him but did not tell their parents. Instead they fed him a biscuit and a little water once a day for three weeks. When he was finally rescued, the flesh on his legs had become putrescent. He could not remember how long he had been down there. Bill Reed extends this situation to explore the interaction of innocence and inhumanity that is so prevalent in these days of random violence. Here, the old...

'... the Theatre of the Absurd and the Theatre of Cruelty are even more pervasively embodied in the plays of Alexander Buzo, Thomas Keneally and Bill Reed. In Buzo's case it is Absurdism which is especially apparent; in Keneally and Reed, Artaudian 'myth' and language-in-space... 'It was Reed in Burke's Company who pioneered Artaudian techniques in a play of stature. If the play is given imaginative production, it powerfully exemplifies one of Artaud's most famous metaphors. The figures on stage will suggest universal human victims burning at the stake, signaling through the flames.'...

Ed: following is the Thomas-Nelson-Australia's 1977 blurb for the original edition, but here annotated, in italics, by the author for this reprint. 'Bill Reed's first novel is a celebration of the Australian language. 'Dogod' employs a language that uses our sounds, our national images, our landscapes and our slang to examine our rhythms and forms of speech. Leading back through the images-as-words of Joyce, Carroll, Thackeray and Shakespeare...' (I thought I was the one making with the jokes here?) '... here is a lament for the human condition as it is affected in modern times.' (I lamented...

This is the hardback version. Legendary man-of-many-faces Leonard Reed and historic Black show business come alive through the eyes of someone who saw it all. From beginnings in medicine shows, Al Capone, speakeasies, Vaudeville, on up through The Cotton Club, The Apollo Theater, TV, and his professional partnership with boxing great Joe Louis, Reed was-in his own words-"too Black to be White, and too White to be Black." His behind-the-scenes struggles through theatre's most celebrated haunts are told through no-holds-barred interviews, rich research, and more than fifty rare illustrations...