What do You think about Soul City (2007)?
I read Soul City several years ago, and what I really liked about it was the fantastical trip it took me on. I literally felt like I was in an alternate universe with musical beings living a supernatural life. And it was so visual. I laughed out loud often at his characterizations and descriptions. I could literally hear the music as I was reading. I disappeared into it every time I read a story. I feel you on the disjointedness, but it put me in the mind of Pulp Fiction. You just kinda have to get it when you get it. I like people who are able to take me places. I missed that world when I finished the book. It was out there though...that boy has some imagination and unique way with words- just like a good writer should.
—Joyce
Toure, Toure, Toure...trying so desperately to be looked at as a "new Negroe", as one who broke the mold, apart from the pack Negro. Soul City, the city of Harlem in a fever dream, where every possible Black Stereotype exists, is scathingly satirized, and chronicled. But while Toure thinks he's tipping sacred cows, he's only adding himself to a long list of authors and comedians willing to "go there". The only difference that I can see is that those others, Langston Hughes, Pervical Everret, Rchard Pryor, and Chris Rock to name just a few, have done it with love while your observations seem full of self hate and malice. I get enough of that from history books, movies and television...Oh thats right, you comment for CNN nowadays, don't you?
—William
Anyone looking for a postmodern novel that spins tales of myth and reality flawlessly into a readable text, Toure has provide one! I have taught this text for four classes, and students have always responded with awe and a bit of shock--these are adequate responses. Cadillac Jackson, the protagonist, is a journalist sent to write a story on the black utopia of Soul City and collides at times with a history and people "so good at being bad" that it leaves the reader questioning the social and political impetus for what goes on in this cool as Hell city. Teeming with allusions to both the African American and American literary landscape, Soul City will give you much to wonder about when it comes to the evolution of African American people--in a humorous way of course!
—U. Teresa
