Uncanny disquiet governs the stories in this collection.
In “Heads,” Jimi Hendrix, who has appeared elsewhere in Allen’s fiction, spends late nights with the painter Francis Bacon, the two talking about art-making and life while Jimi occasionally strums his guitar.
In the collection’s title story, Allen sends the boxer Jack Johnson to Australia for a high-profile fight, where his celebrity and Blackness lead to singular experiences at racialized extremes of local life.
On description alone, you might think this is merely weird and wise comedy, but I think Allen has more in common with Donald Glover than George Saunders.
These are difficult, inventive stories that, at their best, occupy a range of frequencies and otherworldly places with — to borrow Allen’s brilliant three-word description of Jimi Hendrix’s way with music — a “fierce itching dazzle.”
Persons:
disquiet, Allen, Allen —, ” Miles Davis loathes, Jimi Hendrix, Francis Bacon, Jimi, Jack Johnson, Muhammad Ali, Ali, Larry Holmes, Donald Glover, George Saunders, ”, Jimi Hendrix’s
Organizations:
Chicago, Champ
Locations:
Australia, “ Atlanta