Meet Melvin Ellington, a.k.a. Mouth – a Black twenty-something, ex-college radical who has just been released from a five-year prison stretch having been a conscientious objector to the Vietnam War. Back in New York, hungry for freedom and desperate for companionship, Mouth quickly finds himself haunted by his past. Through a filmic series of flashbacks, we see Mouth's time in prison, his college days and, finally, his earliest high school days. Each street corner, subway ride and run-in with an old flame brings with it the echo of his previous life. The rhythm of blues and jazz is baked into each page, with the sounds of the city – barbershop talk, lively gossip, overheard conversations – imprinted in every word. Wesley Brown boldly explores magnetic representations of Black masculinity in crisis, with a style that's even more provoking than its subject.
Authors
Novelist, playwright, and teacher Wesley Brown was born and raised in Harlem, NYC. His work includes three acclaimed novels (Tragic Magic, Darktown Strutters, and Push Comes to Shove) and three produced plays (Boogie Woogie and Booker T, Life During Wartime, and A Prophet Among Them). Brown's work often reflects his political involvement. In 1965, Brown worked with the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party on voting registration. In 1968, he became a member of the Black Panther Party in Rochester, New York. In 1972, he was sentenced to three years in prison for refusing induction into the armed services and spent eighteen months in Lewisburg Federal Penitentiary. He is Professor Emeritus at Rutgers University, where he taught for 27 years. He currently teaches literature at Bard College at Simon's Rock, and lives in Spencertown, New York.
