Let the Dead Bury Their Dead

Surprising this hasn't been reviewed since 2005. This is an awesome book. Doesn't matter this is written by and about black folks, it is fully accesible to everyone. Its a joy to read and I'm not the fastest reader, but I ripped through this collection of stories and enjoyed the wit and wisdom inside each telling. Folksy and down home, like a summer day in the country: hearing the cicadas, a porch, rockin' chair, a tall glass of sun tea and this book: perfection.

In these short stories, Randall Kenan makes the people of Tims Creek so real that one expects to take a map and go meet them. These are "real" people with a history, with folklore, with religion, with complex relationships. The stories explore a variety of situations - the hypocritical preacher, the family accepting the sexual orientation of a son, the "perfect woman" snapping under the pressures of "perfection," the double-crossed and financially strapped worker, religious law vs. the reality of a hard-scramble life, new life from a May-December affair ... It is in the selection of detail that Kenan excells - the history of Tims Creek refers to well known gospel hymns that perfectly identify the tone of community. Or the mother proud of her son, a medical research doctor in Salt Lake City who would be more proud if he'd stayed in North Carolina. Or the cadences of a southern preacher in internal dialogue - " Fire. Nostrils. The four winds. Breath. Her breath. Some days atale, some days swwet, some days stinking of fish and onions." These are stories that stay with the reader, begging to be read and reread.

I was lucky enough to have Randall Kenan as a teacher for a college fiction class, some seven years ago. I have read books by former teachers which I have not been enthralled with, and then there's Let The Dead Bury Their Dead. Seven years have gone by, and there are aspects of the stories contained in this collection that are never far from my mind. The elderly woman teacher, Mabel, who is going crazy. Mabel, Mabel, Mabel. The woman whose grandson dies, who then meets his lover, and struggles. The woman luxuriating in the bathtub, listening to Al Green sing Let's Stay Together, as she thinks of her young lover. One measure of a book is how it stays with you. I assume I will take Let The Dead Bury Their Dead to the grave.

What can I say? From the first story to the last (my favorite, a mesmerizing tale about a former slave who achieves a mythic quality to his life) this collection of stories is brilliant. It is a consistently inventive, intelligent, and passionate account of the fantastic, mystical, and ordinary lives in a small Southern town. Keep writing, Mr. Kenan. I, for one, await a follow-up to this book.

Don't be fooled by the label of "short" stories. These twelve tales are as packed with brilliance as any long book of fiction. Kenan uses a mystical voice to convey the sometimes sad, sometimes happy, and always intriguing point of view of Southern Americans. A must read for anyone who seriously is interested in reaching a full understanding of the South