5 Minutes and 42 Seconds

By T.J. Williams

Cameisha Douglass has it all -- a sprawling home in a posh neighborhood, a fancy car, three healthy children, and a husband, Fashad, who is devoted to her. Her biggest worry is catching her daytime soap operas before the kids come home from school and her husband returns from work, "businesses" that everyone knows are mere fronts through which he launders his drug-dealing money. But as the emotional and sexual secrets of her family come to the surface, she can no longer deny that her life is not all that it seems. While family members point fingers at one another, the real threat may come from the outside, specifically from Smokey, a mixed-race twenty-year-old high school dropout and would-be rapper whose issues with sexual and racial identity fuel his inner rage.

Written by a daring young author with a compelling voice, 5 Minutes and 42 Seconds is a fast-paced and edgy thriller that explores the questions of identity and sexuality with refreshing vigor.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0060837683
• ISBN13: 9780060837686
• Release Date: May 2006
• Publisher: Harper Paperbacks
• Length: 256 Pages
• Weight: 0.45 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 5.3" x 8.0"

Customer Reviews

Very Impressive

This book could easily be turned into a good movie. I was really impressed, as it was the author's 1st novel. All the drama & twists & turns kept me turning the pages! And for a beginning author - no typos (or so few I missed them) - Great reading in my opinion.

Excellent, compelling story of men "on the down low"

As the liner notes say, "Cameisha Douglass had it all." Originally a single African-American mom after her man bailed on her right after the birth of her daughter, Dream, and another boyfriend left her when she was pregnant with his son JD, she was lucky enough to find a "good man", Fashad, who would marry her, and provide for her and her children (including another son, by him) in a manner in which she never dreamed. So what if he was emotionally distant, stayed out most nights, and never denied her allegations that he was seeing another woman on the side. And, so what if that money they lived highly on came from dealing drugs in their Detroit neighborhood, and she had to have drills with their kids to "flush" away the evidence (their record time was 5 minutes and 42 seconds) if their luxurious home was ever raided. With her three kids, from whom she stayed emotionally distant due to her own dysfunctional childhood, Cameisha was lonely in that big house, and welcomed the occasional visits by Smokey, a mixed-race twenty year old courier for Fashad, with aspirations of being a famous and rich rapper. As a confidant, she also had Xander, a gay male hairdresser who worked with her daughter Dream, with whom she talked about their favorite soap operas. Unknown to her, however, Xander was actually Fashad's "other woman", since her husband had been "on the down low" for many years, previously with Smokey (when he was 16) before he tired of him. Xander resented her presence in Fashad's life, and asked him to leave her many times, but - like Smokey and many other African-American men in the ghetto - did not see himself as gay and could not imagine living with another man, besides feeling a sense of responsibility and some love for Cameisha, not to mention protecting his image as a family man. Smokey's young ambition and resentment of Fashad comes to a head, and he cons poor lonely Dream into stealing his money, so they can run away together, after turning her father in to the police. It all goes down at the same time that Cameisha decides her life will never change for the better while Fashad is in the picture, and plots to let the police find some of the drugs in an impending raid, while she takes off with the money. All this will happen "when the trumpet blows," their signal that a police raid is about to happen. I generally avoid novels written in "street jive" language such as this, but the plot and reviews interested me, and I was not disappointed. This is a brilliant first novel by a young African-American undergraduate at Princeton, with vibrant, fully fleshed-out characters and situations that hold the readers' interest at every turn of the page. Besides its entertainment value, it is also a stunning commentary of the "on the down low" habits and attitudes of such men, and portrays its openly-gay character, Xander, in a positive light. I can't give it anything less than a full five stars out of five.

Extremely Well written

This novel was incredibly well executed. I want to commend Amistad Press for breaking the mold in African American literature when discovering T.J. Williams. We, as the African American reading public have had to endure far too many bad writers for the sake of this new movement toward "gangsta' literature," and I think it is a brilliant marketing move to have this novel seem to be another one of those types of novels on the surface and turn out to be work of literary fiction and a good one at that. I won't spoil anything. (and trust me there's a lot I could spoil cause I'm dying to talk about this novel with someoene) I loved what the author did with the trumpet in the novel, as well as what he did with the soap opera All My Children. The aforementioned motifs, as well as the extremely well executed plot, and thoroughly fleshed out characters set this novel far apart from the other novels of it's kind. I bought this novel in conjunction with E. Lynn Harris' Say a Little Prayer, which dealt with the same notion of homophobia within the black church. Ironically, it was Williams', the first time novelist, who executed the theme clearly, subtely, and powerfully, while Harris' slant was repetitious, and counter-intuitively preachy. Not to mention the fact that Harris' novel is just plain boring, and to say 5 Minutes and 42 Seconds is a novel one can't put down is an understatement. This novel will have you up all night and late for work the next day. I can't wait for more novels by T.J. Williams. I can't believe he's only a sophomore at Princeton! If he's at the top of this game now just think of what he'll be capable of in 5 years or so... or 20 for that matter.

WOW! WOW! and WOW!

I bought this novel a while back, but had others on my reading list, and kept bypassing this one. I came across the reviews for this novel on Black Expressions and thought the users had to be over exaggerating. One reviewer even called it the best book she'd ever read! I thought she was wrong. I thought this would be trite, and incomplete. I thought this would be cliche and mundane. I was the one who was wrong!! T.J. Williams is an amazing talent. The motifs, the parallel structure, the uncanny ability to embody characters and remain true to them is simply remarkable, and unfortunately unheard of in contemporary African American Literature. He had me crying one chapter, laughing the next, and always thinking. I found myself not only feeling an immense sense of pride in his achievement, but believing in the future of African American literature as well. If you're into the plot only type of black books then this one has that too. This is steadily paced, completely intriguing, and truely impossible to put down. You will never ever ever be able to tell what's going to happen next. I haven't posted a review before because I haven't felt real passion for a novel that isn't one of the classics, but I certainly read these reviews. I've benefitted from other reviewers now I'm returning the favor. YOU HAVE TO READ THIS BOOK. This is indeed the best novel I've read since Beloved. And I will be recommending it to everyone I know.

The next literary star!

This book was amazing! I couldn't put it down! I had the honor of speaking on a panel with TJ Williams at the American Library Association's conference in New Orleans over the weekend, and was stranded in the airport for almost 12 hours on my way to DC. This book made it a less horrendous experience. I read the whole thing in no time because I couldn't put it down. I loved the extended metaphors, the vivid and descriptive prose that echoes the heartbeat of street life, and the true to life characters. This isn't just some "street lit" novel, this is a literary masterpiece. No joke! It made me look at life through a new set of eyes. I'd love to go into more details of what I loved so much about this book, but I don't want to spoil any of the many surprises in this fantastic novel. It had me talking out loud to the characters! People thought I'd lost my mind, but I didn't care. TJ Williams has a stellar career ahead of him! Take it from me, you owe it to yourself to buy this book! Meta Smith Author of "The Rolexxx Club"