Randall KenanBesprekingen

Funny, informative, powerful - the way Mr. Kenan spoke when sitting directly across the table. One of the things I always appreciated - going back to The Fire This Time and Walking On Water, was Randall Kenan's determination to push back against stereotype - not letting the lives of Southerners or African Americans be reduced to a 'single story.'

The voices in this collection are memorable in their complexity, being both frail and heroic, i.e. fully human.

Sadly Randall Kenan left us far too soon with many great stories left untold - but this collection is a great representation of his work and his place among Southern storytellers.

I won a copy of The Carolina Table: North Carolina Writers on Food in a Goodreads Giveaway. (People really do win!)

I love cooking and have been collecting cookbooks for a number of years. This is not what I call a cookbook though it does have a number recipes in it. What I adore about this book were the stories of North Carolina kitchen tables. Some of them reminded me of my Mamaw's table in Southeast Kentucky. It was the various authors bringing the different flavors that make up North Carolina cuisine and serving them at homes where love ruled the table. Some of the stories will educate you. Some will have you howling with laughter. All will inspire you. These are stories that nourish the soul as well as the stomach.

Your stomach will be nourished, too. Though not a cookbook in the traditional style, there are recipes included. The Annie Collins Pound Cake will delight your taste buds as no box mix for pound cake can. It is divine and not complicated at all to make. I was never one for Butter Beans. I ate my Mamaw's and they were good. My favorites though were Leather Britches. I made the recipe for Better Butter Beans that is in the book and fell in love with Butter Beans. Who knew they could taste so good? If you have never tried cheese grits, I invite you to follow the easy recipe for this southern favorite. If you eat your cornbread on a plate, try it in a cold glass of milk, (a filling supper any night of the week). Sausage biscuits do cure anything that ails you, especially covered in gravy.

Many of the characters in Randall Kenan’s If I Had Two Wings are haunted. Whether by the memory of dead lovers, echoes of the slave-holding past, or mysterious hogs, something uncanny follows the people populating this memorable and smoothly written short story collection. Sadly, haunting too is the fact that Keenan died in late September 2020 at the age of 57, not long after the book was published.

Longlisted for the National Book Award, the ten stories in If I Had Two Wings center around the people of Tims Creek, North Carolina, the place where all of Keenan’s fiction is set. Even if they are not in Tims Creek – the first story in the collection takes place in New York City – they are still of that mythical area of eastern North Carolina. Some, like the miracle-working Velmajean Swearington Hoyt, are apparent saints. Others – the wealthy but hog-haunted Percy Terrell – are closer to being sinners. The gay men Two Wings are more preoccupied by the past. In “I Thought I Heard the Shuffle of Angels’ Feet” architect Cicero Cross, returns to Tims Creek after the death of his famous Brazilian lover and runs into Tony, a friend from high school with whom he had, “[o]ne of those dread, hormone-filled, adolescent, penis-driven, oh-so-happy happenstances.” The character 'Randall' must deal with the remnants of the past still inhabiting his newly renovated home in “Resurrection Hardware or, Lard & Promises.”

The famous also make unexpected appearances in the lives of Tims Creek residents: a retired plumber on vacation gets caught up in rocker Billy Idol’s entourage; while a son discovers his mother was once visited by the reclusive Howard Hughes with an unusual proposition.

Another thread that wafts its way through If I Had Two Wings is food. As befits the editor of The Carolina Table: North Carolina Writers on Food, one encounters such Southern delicacies as ham, grits, collard greens, butter beans, red-eye gravy, and “The Eternal Glory That Is Ham Hocks” in these stories. Even one of Velmajean Swearington Hoyt’s miracles, in a twist on Jesus’s loaves and fishes, involves an endless barrel of turkey barbecue. In remembering his mother’s blueberry biscuits, a character remembers:

For a boy with no knowledge of sex, this basic sensual experience, firing off every nerve ending with sunshine and delight, taught me everything I would need to know about orgasms long before I had need for the word.

According to his friend and editor, Alane Salierno Mason, an Executive Editor and Vice President at publisher W.W. Norton, on the website LitHub, Randall Kenan had been working on a “Chapel Hill novel” for a number of years [https://lithub.com/the-joy-of-editing-and-knowing-randall-kenan/]. One hopes that the book is sufficiently finished so the book can be published. Readers need to enjoy more of Kenan’s funny, poignant, delicious, and mystical fiction.

These stories lacked energy somehow. Maybe it was me, but they just didn't reel me in the way I like with short stories. Oh well, can't win 'em all!

These linked short stories from 1992 were probably revolutionary for their time, when collections written by Black authors were few, but almost thirty years gone by does not put them in the best light. Especially as compared to those by Black women such as Deesha Philyaw, Renee Simms, and many others, they are brutally violent, with women primarily portrayed as lustful temptresses who are the ruination of men and of themselves. Most surprising is the appearance of Booker T. Washington in the town of Tims Creek, NC, the setting for all the stories, a town founded by Menes/Pharoah, who escapes enslavement and leads several successful revolts. A worthy read, unsettling and disturbing - there is no comfort to be found here.½

I liked this, though maybe not loved it. Kenan cheerfully inflicts a variety of visitations on his characters, from rock stars to Howard Hughes, the ability to perform miracles, old flames, and the ghosts of escaped slaves and boar hogs. His characters are bemused by these happenings but never quite lose their equanimity—a byproduct of faith, maybe, or a grounding in home, both of which most of them have to some extent or another, and the story titles echo spirituals and folk songs. Kenan's fictional town of Tims Creek, NC, reminds me of Edward P. Jones's familiarity with Washington, DC, though without Jones's grit or urgency. This is an agreeable, kindly collection with a little otherworldliness dogging it; the writing and dialogue are lovely and go down easy. I was very sorry to hear he died in September—he's someone I would have gladly read more of as he kept writing, and I'll probably go back and check out his earlier work.

Un libro intenso, a tratti amaro. Si alternano stili diversi, spesso contrapposti. Descrizioni e allucinazioni si susseguono. La storia è quella di Horace, ragazzo di colore degli Stati del Sud, i suoi antenati schiavi. Scopre di essere attratto dagli uomini, ma non riesce ad accettarlo. E decide che l’unica via di fuga sia un vecchio rito magico medievale, vorrebbe tramutarsi in un uccello. Ma le cose non vanno come aveva sperato, e in una notte di allucinazioni, ripercorre la sua vita. Per conoscersi. E capirsi. Fino a dire “mi ricordo di me”.

I started out really enjoying these short stories but somewhere around 2/3 of the way read I began losing interest and continued to do so. Therefore I did not read all of the last 2 stories. I did enjoy and appreciate the diversity in this collection. I would recommend this book to those who enjoy short stories.

Beautiful to read, no pretension, as with a lot of recent fiction, particularly that of university instructor/authors.

dust jacket