Christopher Wilson (1)

1.5*

Originally published in the United Kingdom as The Ballad Of Lee Cotton

Leifur Nils Kristjansson Saint Marie du Cotton (called Lee) is born to a mixed-race mother and an Icelandic fisherman father. From his father he gets his white complexion, blond-white hair and startling blue eyes. From his mother he gets his identity as black. Born in segregated Mississippi in 1950, it’s the “black” that counts, not his white skin. Lee also inherits a gift for “seeing” from his Grandmother Celeste. He can hear other people’s thoughts and while this sometimes helps him it mostly confuses him.

I was intrigued by this idea of a “white-skinned black boy” in the segregated South of the mid-20th century. I wanted to see how his special gifts would help him as he moved through life. But the novel took a decided turn for the weird.

After he is nearly beaten to death, Lee awakens in a Missouri hospital. He’s without identification and his head injury makes him rather incoherent. Going along with the assumptions of the hospital staff, Lee begins life as a white man. Until another accident …. Let’s just say that Lee changes skin color and/or gender like some women change hair color. Oh, wait ... he does that, too.

Wilson is a British man, living in London. I’m not sure how – or why – he chose to write about America’s segregated South. While the premise was intriguing, for me, the execution failed to deliver. I will say this about the writing. Wilson gives Lee a unique voice – with an odd mixture of local dialect and educated English. Lee’s a great reader and student of literature, sprinkling his observations of life with references to a variety of works from Huckleberry Finn to Madame Bovary.

On the whole, however, I found this just too fantastically absurd to be believed. I never warmed up to Lee or any of the other characters, and I found it a chore to finish.… (meer)

Satirical account of the final days of Stalin's court. Wilson uses the knowing idiot trope of Forest Gump and The man who climbed out of the window to poke gallows-fun at the dying embers of Stalin and his plotting usurper (Khrushchev/Krushka, Beria/Bruhah, Malenkov/Malakov and Bulganin/). Han enjoyed the many Soviet gags, as they reminded her of China. Plus cà change and all that. When I first saw the debauchery of the end of Stalin's days in _Man who climbed out the window_, I thought it a comic send up of the Soviets, but this second account has sent me to Wikipedia to find out the truth of it. As tactics for keeping the young and ambitious monsters in check, there's a lot to be said for keeping them permanently tired and plastered… (meer)

I won a copy of this book.

This story is told from the perspective of a 12 year old boy, Yuri Zipit who gets appointed as the official food tester for the leader of the Soviet Union.

I thought this was a unique story and told in a way that was at times humorous, and at other times horrific. I read it quickly and enjoyed the flow between chapters.

I had never read anything by Christopher Wilson before but am excited to discover a new author. I will definitely be watching for more of his work.… (meer)