Contemporary African American Novelists: A Bio-Bibliographical Critical Sourcebook ed. by Emmanuel S. Nelson (review)

reform ourselves in response to our own ideas about aging and to our culture's ideas at the same time. In the end, FiguringAge identifies and explains the multitude of"cultural discourses and social practices that construct the meaning ofaging for us" (xvi). As such, Woodward's edited collection brings added life and illumination to the field ofAge Studies for all ofus. * Emmanuel S. Nelson, ed. ContemporaryAfrican American Novelists:A Bio-Bibliographical CriticalSourcebook. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1999. 530p. Julie Barak Mesa State College Nelson has edited several volumes similar in structure to the one currently under review: PostcolonialAfrican Writers: A Bio-Bibliographical Critical Sourcebook (1998), Modern Irish Writers: A Bio-Critical Sourcebook (1997), Latin American Writers on Gay andLesbian Themes:A Bio-CriticalSourcebook (1994), Contemporary GayAmerican Novelists:A Bio-BibliographicalCriticalSourcebook (1993), and Writers ofthe Indian Diaspora: A Bio-Bibliographical Critical Sourcebook (1993). The generally favorable reviews ofthese sourcebooks indicate that the most importantfunction theyserve is in introducingscholars and students towriterswhose work has not been widely read. The newest addition to his sourcebook œuvre, ContemporaryAfricanAmerican Novelists:A Bio-BibliographicalCriticalSourcebook, continues this tradition, offering biographical, critical, and bibliographical material on 79 black writers (41 ofthem women), ranging from the famous — Alice Walker, Toni Morrison, James Baldwin — to the lesser known — Philip Lewis, William Melvin Kelley, Bebe Moore Campbell. The most problematic aspect ofthe text is the unevenness among the entries in depth ofscholarship, style, and tone. A more thorough and careful editing of the individual entries was needed in order to present a polished whole. At the root ofthis unevenness is the variety ofscholars submitting entries, which range from professors at research institutions to graduate students — ofthe 79 entries, 21 are written bydoctoral candidates or graduate students. The entries average about five to seven pages per author. The tone ofthe entries ranges widely. For example, Eberhard Alsen's summary ofToni Morrison's work is preachy and plot-based. He sums up SuU by noting that "SuIa comes across as a character whose life is a cautionary tale and the novel affirms the values that are the opposite ofSula's" (336). This seems a rather simple and dismissive judgment of one of Morrison's most complex works and characFALL 2000 4· ROCKY MOUNTAIN REVIEW * Ml ters. Balancing this rather too facile account of Morrison's novels is the beautiful assessment ofAlice Walker's writing by Molly Roden, who weaves herway through Walker's novels focusing on common themes and on her intellectual and artistic development regarding issues ofpatriarchy, colonialism, and Christianity. Some entries can be faulted for what they leave out. For example, the entry on Terry McMillan by Rita Dandridge mentions the short story McMillan published in Breaking Ice, but doesn't note that McMillan edited this important collection ofAfrican American short fiction. Kimberly M. Brown's discussion ofJune Jordan focuses on her novel for young adults, His Own Where, only very briefly mentioningJordan 's work as a poet and activist. While the focus ofNelson's text is on novelists, it seems necessary to contextualize a discussion ofJordan's prose with comments about her extensive poetic and political publications. And then, the text omits some important novelists altogether. There are no entries for Amiri Baraka, for instance, who, like Jordan, isn't known as a novelist, but has novels in print, or for Rosa Guy, who has published several novels for young adults. Also, thedefinition of"African American" that the text employs may be too limited, as it also excludes powerful contemporary novelists like Edwidge Danticat and Lucille Clifton. The bibliographic sections ofthe entries are as uneven as the biographical and critical sections. Some list exhaustive and current publications by and about the author; others fall short ofthe mark. Forexample, the entry on FrankGarvin Yerby by Louis Hill Pratt lists only Yerby's "best-selling novels," naming only 12 ofhis 33 works. The entries under "Studies ofPaule Marshall" exclude some important publications on Marshall'sworks that could be easily found in a search ofthe MLA on-line database. Mary Ellen Quinn, who reviewed the book for Booklist, noted that "the bibliography for Alice Walker ends unaccountably in 1992." The strength of the text is that it brings together in one easily...