As Alice struggles to fit into and at the same time repel the bourgeois world of fourth – and fifth-generation college-educated blacks, she is forced to examine her pursuit of Dr. Her fascination with class distinction among blacks led to her story of Manhattanite Alice Andrews and her quest to marry a black doctor. “When I went to college and was met by people who asked those kinds of questions, like ‘What does your father do?’ ‘What kind of car did your father drive?’ that fascinated me.” “I don’t think class is something that children understood,” says Little, 38, a former book editor at People who lives in Newark, N.J. “I think I became class-obsessed as a college student at Howard,” says Little, whose Good Hair ($22, Simon & Schuster) was selected one of the Los Angeles Times’ Top 10 books of 1996. He hopes through storytelling such as his, the line of communication between men and women can open, and the opinions and emotions of both sides can be heard.īenilde Little knows something about sharing insights scarcely scrutinized. “Being a black father is like making a stance for the whole race,” he says.

Pate thinks too few black men are having their voices heard in fiction. Pate voices a perspective seldom heard in literature _ a black man emotionally torn and nearly destroyed by the consequences of his choice. Pate’s second novel, is the stirring, personal story of a man who struggles with the decision to abandon his wife and young daughter to pursue his dream. Where Evil Sleeps ($21.95, Putnam) is the third in her series featuring African-American private investigator Tamara Hayle.įinding Makeba ($21.95, Putnam), Alexs D.

The more books there are, the more books people will read,” says mystery author Valerie Wilson Wesley. “I think there’s room for so many different expressions and types of books – science fiction, mysteries, romances. Lynn Harris shares stories of race and homosexuality Dorothy West, ’50s Martha Vineyard dwellers. Felicia Mason is finding her niche as a romance writer E. Fiction that is fun to read.”įun and diverse. “The biggest difference I feel I’m seeing,” she says, “is in black popular fiction. Add an increase in book purchases by blacks – from $181 million in 1990 to $296 million in 1995 – and publishers take notice.Įssence book editor Martha Southgate describes the presence of three African-American women on the best-seller list as “unprecedented.” Toni Morrison’s Beloved and Alice Walker’s Temple of My Familiar shared the ’92 best-sellers’ list with Exhale.

Finding Makeba by Alexs D. Pate