A Visitation of Spirits

"A Visitation of Spirits" is a portrait of Horace Cross, an adolscent both black and gay. This is an angry, often confrontational, novel dealing with the psychological ramifications wrought by religious condemnation, gross hypocrisy and clergy that myopically perverts scripture by preaching hate and intolerance.The story is communicated through a series of recollections. Reality and memory coalesce in a nightmarish, drug-induced psychosis. "A Visitation of Spirits" is a haunting novel of a young gay man wrestling with his demons. His struggles are universal; his solution is, unfortunately, both tragic and final. This is a work of incredible depth,passion and understanding.Randall Kenen, who won a Lambda Award for his short story collection "Let the Dead Bury Thier Dead," is an enormously talented prose stylist. He brings together the best qualities of James Baldwin, Carson McCullers, Toni Morrison and Flannery O'Connor. Higher praise could not be offered.

This is a powerful novel with a complex construction that takes effort on the part of the reader - chapters occur in two series of events that are identified by date and time as well as "confessions" that review particular lives. The book's strength is in showing the successful rural black family's attitude towards whites and in showing the role of the church in their community. The plot line holding it together is that of a talented teenager unable to come to terms with his homosexual orientation, sure that it will damn him in the sight of God. The context for this self-damnation is set by his deacon grandfather who raised him and who counsels members of the community, his great aunts who assist in raising him who are mothers in the church, and his preacher cousin - the religion which runs through the family is a stern religion with the backbone that allowed his family to succeed.Within this framework, we get wonderful prose describing the disappearing culture - house raisings, pig slaughters... - and the "new culture" of racial intergration. We see several generations attempting to adjust to the new world while retaining their family values. All in all a book well worth the time required to read and savor it.

When I reached the last page of this book, and I turned back to the beginning and started over. I have never read a book that so profoundly moved me. Kenan's name should be a household word. He has written a book that lets the reader feel what it is to be black, gay, and shouldering the burden of hundreds of years of family expectations. At the same time, his story is accessible to readers who are neither black nor gay, but simply human beings. Read this book!

Although this book is over ten years old, its currency is not likely to be questioned for many years to come. Kenan gives readers a peek into a rural North Carolina town very much like the one he was raised in. There we find the Cross family, generations old in this same small town, steeped in the traditions of the region. At last, a true black sheep emerges in the family, in the form of Horace, who we see struggling with his identity, from his bookishness to the biggest of all issues, his homosexuality. However, the tale Kenan tells is far from predictable; readers will not find the usual story of a young man coming of age under such circumstances. Instead, everything from family rivalries and resentments to teen angst make Kenan's novel a rich portrait of small town life, in addition to its undeniable status as an affecting tale of one of the most harrowing struggles a young person could face. In addition to a compelling story, Kenan is a true artist, as there are passages in this novel that left me awestruck. I honestly read parts of this book numerous times. I cannot find the superlatives to speak as highly of this book as I want to. Randall Kenan is a supremely talented author, and I truly believe that work like this will bring him much acclaim in the years to come. Ultimately, I leave you with one thought: Buy the book.