Juice!: A Novel
By Ishmael Reed
4.5/5
()
About this ebook
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.
Read more from Ishmael Reed
The Collected Novels of Charles Wright: The Messenger, The Wig, and Absolutely Nothing to Get Alarmed About Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Minister Primarily: A Novel Rating: 1 out of 5 stars1/5The Complete Muhammad Ali Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsDark Eros: Black Erotic Writings Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Complete Muhammad Ali Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Flight to Canada: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Mumbo Jumbo: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Haunting of Lin-Manuel Miranda Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Barack Obama and the Jim Crow Media: The Return of the Nigger Breakers Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Going Too Far: Essays about America's Nervous Breakdown Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBarack Obama and the Jim Crow Media: The Return of the Nigger Breakers Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Yellow Back Radio Broke-Down Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Going Too Far: Essays About America's Nervous Breakdown Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Terrible Fours Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsYellow Back Radio Broke-Down Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBigotry on Broadway: An Anthology Edited by Ishmael Reed and Carla Blank Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsWhy No Confederate Statues in Mexico Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Reckless Eyeballing Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Terrible Threes Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Yellow Back Radio Broke-Down Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Free-Lance Pallbearers: A Novel Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Reckless Eyeballing Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Why No Confederate Statues in Mexico Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Terrible Fours Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSelected Poems of Calvin C. Hernton Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Last Days of Louisiana Red: A Novel Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsIshmael Reed: The Plays Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Terrible Twos Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Related to Juice!
Related ebooks
Barack Obama and the Jim Crow Media: The Return of the Nigger Breakers Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5I Put a Spell on You: The Bizarre Life of Screamin' Jay Hawkins Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsFlight to Canada: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Free-Lance Pallbearers: A Novel Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Terrible Fours Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsHokum: An Anthology of African-American Humor Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The System of Dante's Hell: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Ishmael Reed: The Plays Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsYellow Back Radio Broke-Down Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Mumbo Jumbo: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Last Days of Louisiana Red: A Novel Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsVisible Man: The Life of Henry Dumas Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsEcho Tree: The Collected Short Fiction of Henry Dumas Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Terrible Twos Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsTales of the Out & the Gone: Short Stories Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsS O S: Poems 1961–2013 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Public Burning Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/51989: Bob Dylan Didn’t Have This to Sing About Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Hill William Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Ring of Brightest Angels Around Heaven: A Novella and Stories Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsConversations with Steve Erickson Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsReckless Eyeballing Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Is Just a Movie: A Novel Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5A History of the African-American People (Proposed) by Strom Thurmond: A Novel Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Holy Family - Critique of Critical Critique Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Haunting of Lin-Manuel Miranda Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Going Too Far: Essays about America's Nervous Breakdown Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Spectacle of the Body Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsPinocchio in Venice Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Women Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Literary Fiction For You
The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Confederacy of Dunces Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Flowers for Algernon Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Piranesi Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Life of Pi: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Queen's Gambit Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Prophet Song: A Novel (Booker Prize Winner) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Man Called Ove: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Covenant of Water (Oprah's Book Club) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Old Man and the Sea: The Hemingway Library Edition Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Catch-22: 50th Anniversary Edition Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Demon Copperhead: A Pulitzer Prize Winner Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Master & Margarita Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Leave the World Behind: A Read with Jenna Pick Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Tender Is the Flesh Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Pride and Prejudice: Bestsellers and famous Books Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Little Birds: Erotica Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Nigerwife: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Farewell to Arms Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Cloud Cuckoo Land: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Poisonwood Bible: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Only Woman in the Room: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Anna Karenina: Bestsellers and famous Books Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Labyrinth of Dreaming Books: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5All the Ugly and Wonderful Things: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Lady Tan's Circle of Women: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Salvage the Bones: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Sympathizer: A Novel (Pulitzer Prize for Fiction) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Annihilation: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Camp Zero: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Reviews for Juice!
3 ratings2 reviews
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A hilarious multi-layered satire, it will make you laugh, make you think, and make you cringe.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5This biting and witty satire about the 1995 O.J. Simpson murder trial and the reaction to it by the U.S. media is narrated by Paul "Bear" Blessings, a middle aged African American cartoonist employed by KCAK, an alternative television station in NYC that has recently been purchased by a new owner and run by his son, who has replaced the station's former progressive programming with hosts who are more appealing to a conservative audience of viewers. Bear is kept on staff mainly to appease the station's critics, who accuse the new ownership of discrimination and fanning the flames of hatred against racial and religious minorities and women. The station's most popular program is Nigguz News, which portrays the worst elements of African American culture, to show its viewers what black people are really like.Bear and his fellow members of the Rhinosphere, a group of African American professional artists, are outraged by the coverage of the trial by the media, particularly its prejudicial treatment and condemnation of O.J. (whose nickname is The Juice), who is portrayed as a rich and uppity black man who has committed two unspeakable crimes: marrying a beautiful white woman (and, even worse, a blonde), and viciously murdering her. In response, Bear draws a satirical cartoon (shown on the book's cover) in which he portrays O.J. as a quarterback about to receive a football from a woman who is meant to represent the U.S. media, to demonstrate that O.J. is running plays for the trial obsessed radio, television and newspaper broadcasters and columnists. However, one of his conservative colleagues at KCAK, a Hispanic woman whose popularity is based on her rants against her fellow Latinos, is aghaist when she first sees it, as she interprets it as O.J. sodomizing a white woman, and Bear is condemned by the new ownership and put on probation.Bear continues to follow the O.J. murder trial obsessively, as he recognizes that all black men are, in essence, also on trial, and are being held guilty by association with him. His narrative provides an excellent summary of the details of the trial, along with prejudicial comments made by well known members of the media, along with its aftermath after O.J.'s acquittal. Reed makes the case that this post-trial outrage led to the rise and popularity of right wing media outlets such as Fox News, which commenced operations in 1996, and of conservative talk radio personalities such as Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck and Sean Hannity, along with the Telecommunications Act of 1996 that allowed companies to own more stations and for some programs to become nationally syndicated and exposed to a wider audience. He also demonstrates that the fallout from the O.J. trial explains the harsh, prejudicial and hypocritical treatment of Barack Obama by the right wing media during his eight years in the White House, who continue to largely ignore and overlook the current president's innumerable moral sins and personal shortcomings.Juice! is one of the best satirical novels I've ever read, and it is a great introduction to Ishmael Reed. I'm ashamed that it took me this long to get to one of his novels, but I'll read the other books I own by him in the near future, starting with Mumbo Jumbo, his most acclaimed work.