Philip Page - Reclaiming community in contemporary African-American fiction

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title	:	Reclaiming Community in Contemporary African-American Fiction
author	:	Page, Philip.
publisher	:	University Press of Mississippi
isbn10 | asin	:	1578061237
print isbn13	:	9781578061235
ebook isbn13	:	9780585210414
language	:	English
subject	American fiction--African American authors--History and criticism, American fiction--20th century--History and criticism, African Americans in literature, Community in literature.
publication date	:	1999
lcc	:	PS374.N4P34 1999eb
ddc	:	813/.5409896073
subject	:	American fiction--African American authors--History and criticism, American fiction--20th century--History and criticism, African Americans in literature, Community in literature.

Page iii Reclaiming Community in Contemporary African American Fiction Philip Page University Press of MississippiJackson

Page iv http://www.upress.state.ms.us Copyright 1999 by University Press of Mississippi All rights reserved Manufactured in the United States of America 02 01 00 99 4 3 2 1 The paper in this book meets the guidelines for permanence and durability of the Committee on Production Guidelines for Book Longevity of the Council on Library Resources. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Page, Philip. Reclaiming community in contemporary African American fiction / Philip Page. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 1-57806-122-9 (alk. paper). ISBN 1-57806-123-7 (pbk.: alk. paper) 1. American fictionAfro-American authorsHistory and criticism. 2. American fiction20th centuryHistory and criticism. 3. Afro Americans in literature. 4. Community in literature. I. Title. PS374.N4P34 1999 813'.5409896073dc21 98-39517 CIP British Library Cataloging-in-Publication Data available

Page v For my mother

Page vii Contents Acknowledgments ix 1 At the Crossroads 1 2 "Always Yes and Always No": Affirmation and Doubt in John Edgar Wideman's Fiction 37 3 "Across the Borders": Imagining the Future in Toni Cade Bambara's The Salt Eaters 78 4 "As Within, So It Is Without": The Composite Self in Charles Johnson's Oxherding Tale and Middle Passage 116 5 "Listening below the Surface": Beyond the Boundaries in Gloria Naylor's Fiction 157 6 "You Don't See What I Don't See": Communal Construction of Meaning in Earnest Gaines's Fiction 191 7 Performing Cultural Work 222 Notes 227 Works Cited 235 Index 247

Page ix Acknowledgments This study was initially funded in 1994 by a summer reading grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities. In 1995 and 1997 I received grants from California State University, San Bernardino, to continue the work, and in the 1996-97 academic year I was awarded a sabbatical leave during which most of the book was drafted. By reading and discussing some of the novels considered here, the students in my courses on contemporary African-American fiction stimulated my own thinking. In particular, I want to thank Kasmira Finch for her helpful suggestions and her research and editorial assistance. Two former students, Yvonne Atkinson and Sally-Anne Josephson, have continued to be valuable sounding boards and unflinching critics. Another former student, Tracy Viselli, helped clarify my thoughts about Gloria Naylor's fiction. My colleagues in the English department and the School of Humanities at California State University, San Bernardino, have consistently supported the project. Michelle Pagni-Stewart offered many useful suggestions and queries on the chapter on Ernest Gaines, and Rong Chen and Wendy Smith provided research assistance on questions relating to linguistics. As I prepared a chapter for an edition of essays on Gloria Naylor, Margot Anne Kelley helped me rethink my ideas about Naylor's fiction. I also thank the editors of the College Language Association Journal and Greenwood Press for permission to include the parts of the chapter on Naylor

Page x that they previously published, and I thank the editors of African American Review for permission to use material from a previously published review of The Cattle Killing. I received courteous and professional support from Seetha A-Srinivasan, Anne Stascavage, and many others at the University Press of Mississippi and from Ellen D. Goldlust-Gingrich, who copyedited the manuscript. Last, but certainly not least, I thank my wife, Reba, who, again, as always, has been invaluable.

Page 1 1 At the Crossroads After cautioning her readers about the dangers of oversimplification, Margaret Atwood asserts that every country and culture has a "unifying and informing symbol": for England, it is the island; for Canada, survival; for the United States, the frontier (31). At the heart of the American dream, the concept of the frontier embodies the freedom to leave behind a personally unfulfilling or unsatisfactory place in the expectation of a better one. Moving on to a better place also creates a new time, substituting a projected new future for a no-longer-desired past. For the dream of the frontier to function, movement must be free, readily available, and perceived as advantageous. As Lawrence Levine notes, "spatial mobility" has been important "throughout American history for all segments of the population'' (262), for physical mobility in American culture is the key to upward social mobility, economic success, and political expression. The frontier is the creative edge of the ideal "democratic social space" by which, according to Philip Fisher, the United States invented its national identity (72).1

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