High Cotton

by Darryl Pinckney

Book Overview

No one sat me down and told me I was a Negro. That was something I figured out on the sly...

So begins acclaimed critic and novelist Darryl Pinckney's debut novel, High Cotton, an elegant and insightful look into the world of upper-middle-class black elite, or, in a term popularized by W. E. B. Du Bois, "the talented tenth." The story follows an unnamed narrator as he moves from his safe childhood in conservative Indianapolis...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0312420226
• ISBN13: 9780312420222
• Release Date: February 2017
• Publisher: Picador USA
• Length: 320 Pages
• Weight: 1.20 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 5.4" x 8.2"

Customer Reviews

Exceptional writing

When I first read this, I took it to be a memoir because of some obvious overlap between Pinckney's personal history and that of his protagonist, but more especially because of the intense vividness and immediacy of the language. Learning it's a novel does nothing to change my high opinion of the book, which should be much better known/more widely read. Pinckney's got a powerful and striking prose style and it's also a fiercely intelligent book, one which takes nothing for granted. I'd group him with those essayists-novelists like Rebecca West, George Orwell and James Baldwin whose medium is prose rather than the novel per se; this book is well worth checking out.

excellent fiction

"High Cotton" is well written fiction by an author I'd like to see more work by. Pinckney is a "real" writer. By that I mean he knows how to use the language in an interesting way. It's not just a "what happens next" kind of book which, unfortunately, tends to be the norm in popular fiction by African-American writers. Just pick up a copy of any Terry Mcmillan book (with the exception of "Mama"), and you'll see what I mean. Read High Cotton to experience a black writer's voice, humor and wit, A family drama, a comedy, a social commentary, an excellent read