Mumbo Jumbo: A Novel

By Ishmael Reed

Ishmael Reed’s inspired fable of the ragtime era, in which a social movement threatens to suppress the spread of black culture—hailed by Harold Bloom as one of the five hundred greatest books of the Western canon
In 1920s America, a plague is spreading fast. From New Orleans to Chicago to New York, the “Jes Grew” epidemic makes people desperate to dance, overturning social norms in the process. Anyone is vulnerable and when they catch it, they’ll bump and grind into a frenzy. Working to combat the Jes Grew infection are the puritanical Atonists, a group bent on cultivating a “Talking Android,” an African American who will infiltrate the unruly black communities and help crush the outbreak. But PaPa LaBas, a houngan voodoo priest, is determined to keep his ancient culture—including a key spiritual text—alive.     Spanning a dizzying host of genres, from cinema to academia to mythology, Mumbo Jumbo is a lively ride through a key decade of American history. In addition to ragtime, blues, and jazz, Reed’s allegory draws on the Harlem Renaissance, the Back to Africa movement, and America’s occupation of Haiti. His style throughout is as avant-garde and vibrant as the music at its center.   This ebook features an illustrated biography of Ishmael Reed including rare images of the author.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Media
• Release date: Jan 29, 2013
• ISBN: 9781453287972

Ishmael Reed

Ishmael Reed (b. 1938) is an acclaimed multifaceted writer whose work often engages with overlooked aspects of the American experience. He has published ten novels, including Flight to Canada and Mumbo Jumbo, as well as plays and collections of essays and poetry. He was nominated for a National Book Award in both poetry and prose in 1972. Conjure (1972), a volume of poetry, was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize, and his New and Collected Poems: 1964–2006 (2007) received a Gold Medal from the Commonwealth Club of California. Reed has also received a Lila Wallace–Reader’s Digest Award, a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Blues Song Writer of the Year award from the West Coast Blues Hall of Fame, a Rosenthal Family Foundation Award from the National Institute for Arts and Letters, and a MacArthur Fellowship. Reed taught at the University of California, Berkeley, for thirty-five years and currently lives in Oakland, California.      

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Reviews for Mumbo Jumbo

[whitewavedarling · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Something like a version of Black Like Me, but written by Pynchon----this one just wasn't my cup of tea. The pace was lightning fast, but it never slowed down or went in depth enough for me to really catch hold of any but the most basic ideas within the plot. It was an interesting experiment in conception and reading, but after the experiment wore off on me in the first hundred or so pages, there just wasn't anything there to keep me going. Cinematic--experimental--interesting--creative.......but not, in the end, anything I'd want to come back to. For me, the points could have been made with less somersaulting in the text and structure.

[porius_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

cool papa bell was so fast that he'd hit the light switch and before the room went dark he'd be all wrapped up in the covers. i saw ishmael reed at the downtown library in detroit, and he was just as quick.

[mdshrk1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Multimedia book, before there really was multimedia. Jus Grew has infected America and the Knights Templar and the Wallflower Order are out to stop it. Papa LaBas and his VooDoo cronies are out to stop them. The movement is just what it says it is, and came into creation the same way: it "Jus' Grew." This is a mystical book that describes Reed's attitudes about race, incorporates legends from Europe and Africa, and is a murder/conspiracy novel at the same time.

[ostrom_2 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I love this book, its dizzying improvisations, its satire and wit. It's an easy book to love but a difficult one, alas, to teach.

[mjpronko · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Wildly rambling and hilarious take on American culture. Reed pits the straight, can't dance world against the hip, love music world, and the latter comes out on top. This is an important work that probably would never be written outside of the 1960s mindset where music is the moving force of the better half of humanity, while the other half tries to keep everyone from moving to the groove. It's an extended meditation on American culture's odd relationship to black music, and the power of that music.

[sometimeunderwater · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Didn't finish. Wanted to love it, because it's clearly important to a particular moment in literature (which is still thoroughly relevant in 2018) and it's wonderfully, wildly postmodern, but it sacrifices too much in its pursuit of that for me to love it. Would love to revisit once I'm less time-poor, and can maybe enjoy it as part of a group read-a-long or with some recreational drugs.