Publishers Weekly
This unusual urban tale from poet, essayist and novelist Major (An Open Weave) centers on an African-American family in San Francisco's rapidly changing Fillmore District. Administering a heavy dose of magical realism, the narration alternates between the voice of a 300-year-old ghost of an African slave and a more traditional third-person viewpoint (although the two often seem to merge). The extended Everman family includes Ranger, a Vietnam vet haunted by incidents during the war and plagued by drug addiction; his son, Jamal"known familiarly as Sketch for his artistic talents, which run deeper than the graffiti he tags on the streets; and Ranger's pregnant sister, Dawa, who recalls the ever-shifting history of their neighborhood. When a random act of violence strikes, their fractured past must be addressed head-on. Young Jamal, in particular, finds a way to better understand his father's place in the world, and thus gains a better sense of himself. Serving as a help line is eccentric neighbor Victoria, an old woman who paints herself white and communes with the spirit-narrator. Some readers will resist the otherworldly narration and symbolism, which can feel disjointed and heavy-handed; others will be intrigued by the depth and history it lends to modern-day San Francisco, the realities of racial prejudice and, above all, the many-layered truths of families. (May) Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.
Library Journal
In Major's novel about San Francisco's Fillmore neighborhood and a multigenerational African American family, the Evermans, the city is as much a character as the people. The people are Victoria, an elderly woman who dresses in white and paints herself white, in her attempt usually successful to make herself invisible; Ranger, a Vietnam vet combating his addictions and his posttraumatic stress disorder; Ranger's son, Jamal, a graffiti artist; Ranger's sister, Dawa, who passionately loves the city's fogs and hills as much as she loves her family; and the spirit of an African woman dead 200 years, who watches over all of them. This brilliantly beautiful, lyric novel has more than a touch of magical realism. This is Major's second novel after An Open Weave, which was awarded the Black Caucus of the American Library Association First Novelist Award. Major has also published two books of poetry and has just been named San Francisco's poet laureate. Highly recommended for all libraries. Mary Margaret Benson, Linfield Coll. Lib., McMinnville, OR Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.
Kirkus Reviews
Poet and storywriter Major returns, less forcefully, to the extended black family theme of An Open Weave (1995) in her second outing: a tale that conjures up a centuries-old ghost as narrator in detailing the tragic consequences of Vietnam, drugs, racism, and urban renewal in the decline of a once-thriving black community. With a surname like Everman, there's no avoiding the allegorical intent in what befalls this family in the Fillmore district of San Francisco. Ranger, the dad, is a Vietnam vet dragged low by drugs, which end his marriage but not his contact with his now-pregnant sister Dawa or his teenaged son Sketch, a talented graffiti artist already in trouble with the law for his art, with whom Ranger sometimes connects at his mother Lucille's place. Ranger wants to get clean, but just at the moment when he may have reached his goal he's gunned down, a bystander in a drive-by witnessed by Sketch. Also witnesses are Victoria, an old woman who paints herself white in order to believe herself invisible in public, and her companion, the ghost-narrator. Victoria befriends Sketch, but he can't bear to go home again after his dad's death, living instead with friends and on the street. Ultimately, he's persuaded to make the trip to the Vietnam Memorial in Washington that Ranger had promised him-but with his stepfather instead. Major tells it the way it is with a magical-realist twist, but a tendency to replace dialogue with posturing and speeches undermines her story's impact.
