Mumbo gumbo / Ishmael Reed / 1972

Mumbo gumbo / Ishmael Reed / 1972

I’ve been wanting to read this book for years and I’m shook by its aliveness. Full of Black humor, Reed operates in the cynical, satirical mode that reminds me of Paul Beatty. Mumbo Jumbo follows a group of Illuminati elites as they try to take down the emerging Black intelligentsia, operating with a mix of political know-how and ancient magic and infecting the populace with a dancing epidemic--also known as jazz. Mumbo Jumbo creates its own formal rules, writing in sometimes brief chapters reminiscent of prose poems, and sometimes longer chapters. Either way, there is a jazz, a riff through socially complex interactions with a sharp political insight. I want to teach this book on a course on Black Intertextuality alongside The White Boy Shuffle by Paul Beatty and Erasure by Percival Everett. 5/5