Rebel Yell

From the book cover and the little bit I'd heard about Rebel Yell, I had expected a portrait of a Southern black marriage in the 60s maybe. I expected pearls, high heels, LINKS, Jack and Jill and all that bougie black folk Talented Tenth stuff. I got that and so much more. The time spans all the way up to the present. And there are spies in this book! And good humor, sadness and lots of mystery. Randall doesn't spoon feed you the story--this is ambitious fiction here--so there are a few pieces of the puzzle (and this book is a puzzle) that are vague enough that I'm not sure exactly what happened. But I'm okay with that. Randall has a way with words and a way with characters that kept me hooked from page one. Absolutely loved it!

Alice Randall's "Rebel Yell" is a novel about love, race, sex, power, culture, family...just to name a few themes! An ambitious novel that delivers page after page, Rebel Yell shows why Alice is one of America's finest writers. This book was truly enjoyable to read. It was exciting and action packed, but also sweet and relation-ship driven. The world that Alice Randall creates here comes alive in full color. The characters are very real and interesting. The times and places that Alice sets the book are fascinating. The writing is intelligent and soulful. Bravo Alice! PS Music lovers will also appreciate Alice's use of sound and song to tell this story.

Randall's third book is what a novel should be: entertaining and enlightening. 'Rebel Yell' takes the reader on a journey through the homes, lives and secrets of the black elite of Nashville, a group no other book has touched upon with such depth and honesty. Through believable characters and stirring writing, Randall brings to life the dreams, histories and contradictions particular to an oft-overlooked group of black Americans. During a year in which the United States has experienced its first black president, this book could not have arrived at a better time.

"Rebel Yell" is a novel about truth: its awfulness, its immensity, and its rarity. With her careful construction of characters, setting, and words that fall from the page with palpable emotion, Randall has created a vibrant tapestry in "Rebel Yell," made of the very fabric of this nation. The writing is complex, rich and decadent; but, it takes a discerning palate to appreciate the nuance of her work. Randall gives entrée to the often-overlooked world of affluent, self-sustaining, African-American "royalty." DuBois often spoke of the talented tenth; Randall has brought them to life. A revised birth of a nation, Randall's novel shows what the Civil War and Civil Rights bore into the future. Race here, however, is not black and white. Randall has transformed the colors into even bolder emotions--fear, strength, pride--and softens them with themes of family and goodness. "Rebel Yell" reveals that the truth is redemptive and triumphant. Randall, with her incredible grasp of history, literature, and politics of the age, shows that there are no accidents in life. There is no such thing as spontaneous generation. The evil of one era can beget evil in the next. The only good writing is personal writing, and this is a novel with the power to speak to every person who stops to listen.