Close to the Bone

by Jake Lamar and Cleo Qian

The author of Bourgeois Blues offers an interracial tragicomedy set during the O.J. Simpson trial about a highly appealing band of brothers grappling with questions about race and identity, intimacy... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0517704072
• ISBN13: 9780517704073
• Release Date: January 1999
• Publisher: Crown Publishing Group (NY)
• Length: 343 Pages
• Weight: 1.50 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 6.3" x 9.3"

Customer Reviews

I can't wait for the movie!

I never read Jake Lamar before and was completely thrilled to have found a new author I can follow. Close to the Bone is the kind of book that makes you want to run out and buy everything else ever written by Jake Lamar. I can't believe I never heard of him before, novel connoiseur that I am. Congratulations to a job well done Mr.Lamar.

A Tour de Force of literary genious!

This is the first but by no means the last time I've read Jake Lamar's work. Brilliant! It is the most imaginative, engaging and enchanting work since Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil. Traveling from Delaware to the marijuana smoke-filled cafes of Amsterdam to the streets of Paris, I took the heady ride with the characters until the compelling end. It was a book that was hard to put down, and the author did an amazing job portraying flashbacks that gave insights into the characters' psyche without losing the reader's interest or intellect. He is a blessed and talented writer that I will always follow. One question, what does "Close to the Bone" mean?

Superb!!!!

Lamar, nails it again. I read this book in 2 days. He's able to capture the essence of each character and the struggle with their identities. The character named "Tony" was exciting and shows that truth grow comes from facing and walking through fire. I really enjoyed it. Lamar is one of the premier authors of this century. I hope more people view him as a complicated, funny, and real literary genius similar to Richard Wright.

Black-maleness at its best

WHEW! Finishing this book was like closing a chapter in my life. It highlighted just what I thought brothers were thinking and feelings about in relationships in general. The characters jumped at you and though "adversity" wasn't apparent (all had middle-upper class upbringings) their plights took me on a journey I enjoyed for 24 hours [that is right, read it in a day]. Hal's visual delima vs. his actual delima with dealing with a white girlfriend gave me an insight about how brothers see themselves in interracial relationships. There were some catches that I didn't like...Walker's life summation with Eva, and Corky's summation in Amsterdam. This all seemed too wrapped up, too clean. Also the [very] brief encounter with LaTonya and Hal didn't begin to envelop the emotions I developed from their two interloping stories.

What excellent story-telling!

Jake writes a brilliant narrative that speaks the truth! I thoroughly enjoyed the complexity of Hal, Walker, Sadie, and even Corky. The raw descriptions of these characters, their flaws and tragedies are an irrefutable reflection of today's harsh reality. This is definitely a must-read, particularly for those who have endured similar experiences of being black and middle-class. Case in point, it [this book] is described (see above), "In the tradition of Bebe Moore Campbell, Terry McMillan, and E. Lynn Harris," I fervently disagree. Jake Lamar established his own voice, free of the prototypical categorization that "certain folks" must bear. I consider him a breakthrough.