William Melvin Kelley's Books

A Different Drummer

By: William Melvin Kelley

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The stunning, thought-provoking first novel by a "lost giant of American literature" (The New Yorker) June, 1957. One hot afternoon in the backwaters of the Deep South, a young black farmer named Tucker Caliban salts his fields, shoots his horse, burns his house, and heads north with his wife and child. His departure sets off an exodus of the state’s entire black population, throwing the established order into brilliant disarray. Told from the points of view of the white residents who remained, A Different Drummer stands, decades after its first publication in 1962, as an extraordinary and prescient triumph of satire and spirit.

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241

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Anchor

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ISBN 10

1984899309

ISBN 13

9781984899309

A Drop of Patience

By: William Melvin Kelley

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A Drop of Patience

By: William Melvin Kelley

One of the great jazz novels of any era, A Drop of Patience tells the story of a blind horn player's journey through the themes of race, blindness, and music. At the age of five, Ludlow Washington is given up by his parents to a brutal white-run state institution for blind African American children, where everyone is taught music--the only trade by which they are expected to make a living. Ludlow is a prodigy on the horn and at fifteen is "purchased" out of the Home by a bandleader in the fictive Southern town of New Marsails. By eighteen he is married with a baby daughter, but as his reputation spreads he seeks to grow musically, leaving his budding family for a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity in New York City. Navigating the worlds of music and race and women, Ludlow's career follows an arc towards collapse, a nervous breakdown, recovery, a long-delayed public recognition, only for him to finally abandon the spotlight and return to his roots and find solace in the black church. A Drop of Patience is a brilliant portrayal of a jazz musician. It stands apart as an exemplary parable of African American history, of racial politics, and of musical creative genius.

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242

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Anchor

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ISBN 10

1984899325

ISBN 13

9781984899323

Dis//Integration

2 Novelas & 3 Stories & a Little Play

By: William Melvin Kelley

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Dis//Integration

2 Novelas & 3 Stories & a Little Play

By: William Melvin Kelley

An odyssey through time in which past and future combine and re-combine to give the arc of a full life, by the "brilliant" (The New Yorker) author of A Different Drummer. "[A] lost giant of American literature." —The New Yorker The linked "2 novelas, 3 stories, and a little play" that make up DIS//INTEGRATION follow the life journeys of Charles "Chig" Dunford from his Nanny Eva sermonizing from her front porch, when he is only seventeen, to his peripatetic studies in Reupeo (an anagram of Europe) as a college student, to his unsettled bachelorhood as an English professor at a small Vermont college, where he continues to struggle to finish his life-long study of the Reupeonese author Dupukshamin and find true love. Along the way, as Chig's sentimental education unfolds, we meet an array of memorable characters: John Hoenir, the Hemingway-esque expatriate novelist who takes Chig under his wing; Wendy Whitman, an actress passing for white, who breaks Chig's heart; Merry, his troubled teen-age niece who Chig, in middle-age, agrees to look after; Raymond Winograd, the villainous department chair; Renka Bravo, the alluring dancer who might just make Chig an honest man; and one hundred Africans mysteriously chained together in the lower decks of Chig's homeward-bound transatlantic liner.

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225

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Vintage

Published Date

ISBN 10

0593469933

ISBN 13

9780593469934

Dunfords Travels Everywheres

By: William Melvin Kelley

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Dunfords Travels Everywheres

By: William Melvin Kelley

WINNER OF THE AMERICAN BOOK AWARD • William Melvin Kelley's final work, a Joycean, Rabelaisian romp in which he brings back some of his most memorable characters in a novel of three intertwining stories. "[A] lost giant of American Literature." —The New Yorker Ride on out with Rab and Turt, two o'New Afriqueque's toughfast, ruefast Texnosass Arangers, as they battle Chief Pugmichillo and ricecure Mr. Charcarl Walker-Rider. Cut in on Carlyle Bedlowe, wrecker of marriage, saver of souls. Or just along with Chig Dunford, product of Harlem and private schools, on the circular voyage of self-discovery that takes him from Europe's Café of One Hand to Harlem's Jack O'Gee's Golden Grouse Bar & Restaurant. Beginning on an August Sunday in one of Europe's strangest cities, Dunfords Travels Everywheres but always returns back to the same point—the "Begending"—where Mr. Charcarl's dream becomes Chig Dunford's reality (the "Ivy League Negro" in the world outside the Ivory Tower). “Among the most innovative and exciting novelists in the history of international literature, the opportunity to honor William Melvin Kelley with the American Book Award is a great privilege. Before Columbus Foundation is elated to welcome his work back into print, thanks to Anchor Books. It is a unique thrill to see Dunfords Travels Everywheres now illustrated in it’s new edition by Aiki Kelley, whom we also honor with this year’s Award. The majesty of William Melvin Kelley’s vital contribution to international letters remains urgent and evermore medicinal in its cosmic scope and unifying embrace. The total arc and panorama of human experience, embodied in the mythologies we share from antiquity to the present are fully illuminated in William Melvin Kelley’s artistry. An absolute virtuoso of the language, with Dunfords Travels Everywheres, William Melvin Kelley ignites the spiritual imagination, reviving and resuscitating images of our journey with wit and grace. His masterwork is truly a wonder to behold. Vivid, charismatic, mercurial, musical, Dunfords Travels Everywheres stands as one of the great contributions to the art of the novel. Laughing to keep from crying, living life not dying, this new illustrated edition sings a joyous, uplifitng song.” —Justin Desmangles, citation from the American Book Award

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226

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Anchor

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ISBN 10

1984899376

ISBN 13

9781984899378

A Drop of Patience

By: William Melvin Kelley

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A Drop of Patience

By: William Melvin Kelley

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242

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1984899325

ISBN 13

9781984899323

Dunfords Travels Everywheres

By: William Melvin Kelley

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Dunfords Travels Everywheres

By: William Melvin Kelley

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226

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Anchor

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ISBN 10

1984899376

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9781984899378

Dis//Integration

2 Novelas & 3 Stories & a Little Play

By: William Melvin Kelley

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Dis//Integration

2 Novelas & 3 Stories & a Little Play

By: William Melvin Kelley

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225

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Vintage

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ISBN 10

0593469941

ISBN 13

9780593469941

dem

By: William Melvin Kelley

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dem

By: William Melvin Kelley

A searing, provocative satire by one of the most important African-American novelists of the twentieth century that lays bare the abiding racism and the legacy of slavery on the psyche of white America. Mitchell Pierce is a well-off New York ad executive whose marriage is falling apart. He no longer feels any passion for his pregnant wife, Tam, and even feels estranged from his toddler son, Jake. Mitchell is trapped in an unrewarding and loveless life, and though domestic violence isn't in his character, it is never very far away, either. Mitchell's life will irrevocably change one day, though, when a young man appears at his apartment door to pick up the family's black maid, Opal, for a date. Cooley it turns out is not a stranger to the household. The twins that Tam is carrying are a result of superfecundation—the fertilization of two separate ova by two different males. So when one child is born black and the other white, Mitchell goes on a quest to find Cooley and make him take his baby. In the tradition of Brer Rabbit trickster tales, dem enacts a modern-day fable of turning the tables on the white oppressor and inverting the history of miscegenation and subjugation of African Americans.

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210

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Anchor

Published Date

ISBN 10

1984899333

ISBN 13

9781984899330

Beloved Harlem

A Literary Tribute to Black America's Most Famous Neighborhood, From the Classics to The Contemporary

By: William H. Banks, Jr.

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Beloved Harlem

A Literary Tribute to Black America's Most Famous Neighborhood, From the Classics to The Contemporary

By: William H. Banks, Jr.

A passionate ode to an American mecca, Beloved Harlem is a literary look into the vibrant African-American haven, edited by one of its celebrated native sons. William H. Banks, Jr., combines the classics with the contemporary as he showcases some of the best essays, short stories, and novel excerpts inspired by the diversity of Harlem life, from the early twentieth century to the new millennium. The days and nights of black Manhattan come alive in the words of historically famous writers like W.E.B. Dubois, Zora Neale Hurston, Langston Hughes, Dorothy West, Ossie Davis, and Toni Morrison, along with the works of brilliant newcomers to the neighborhood, including Brian Keith Jackson’s witty examination of identity politics in The Queen of Harlem and Rosemarie Robatham’s “Dreaming in Harlem,” a moving tale about a woman at the edge of society who finds sanctuary with a stranger. From renaissance through tough times to revitalization, this triumphant homage gives Harlem the historical perspective it so rightly deserves. Beloved Harlem is a welcome addition to the libraries of readers who are either already in love with Harlem or ready to take the fall.

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Page Count

546

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Crown

Published Date

ISBN 10

0307514072

ISBN 13

9780307514073

A Different Drummer

By: William Melvin Kelley

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A Different Drummer

By: William Melvin Kelley

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241

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Anchor

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ISBN 10

1984899309

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9781984899309

New Day in Babylon

he Black Power Movement and American Culture, 1965–1975

By: William L. Van Deburg

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New Day in Babylon

he Black Power Movement and American Culture, 1965–1975

By: William L. Van Deburg

The most comprehensive account available of the rise and fall of the Black Power Movement and of its dramatic transformation of both African-American and larger American culture. With a gift for storytelling and an ear for street talk, William Van Deburg chronicles a decade of deep change, from the armed struggles of the Black Panther party to the cultural nationalism of artists and writers creating a new aesthetic. Van Deburg contends that although its tactical gains were sometimes short-lived, the Black Power movement did succeed in making a revolution—one in culture and consciousness—that has changed the context of race in America. "New Day in Babylon is an extremely intelligent synthesis, a densely textured evocation of one of American history's most revolutionary transformations in ethnic group consciousness."—Bob Blauner, New York Times Winner of the Gustavus Myers Center Outstanding Book Award, 1993

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Page Count

388

Publisher

University of Chicago Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

022617235X

ISBN 13

9780226172354

Dancers on the Shore

By: William Melvin Kelley

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Dancers on the Shore

By: William Melvin Kelley

The first and only short story collection by William Melvin Kelley, author of A Different Drummer, and the source from which he drew inspiration for his subsequent novels. Originally published in 1964, this collection of sixteen stories includes two linked sets of stories about the Bedlow and Dunford families. They represent the earliest work of William Melvin Kelley and provided a rich source of stories and characters who were to fill out his later novels. Spanning generations from the Deep South during Reconstruction to New York City in the 1960s, these insightful stories depict African American families--their struggles, their heartbreak, and their love.

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Page Count

178

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Anchor

Published Date

ISBN 10

1984899368

ISBN 13

9781984899361

Kelley's Textbook of Rheumatology

By: William N. Kelley

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Kelley's Textbook of Rheumatology

By: William N. Kelley

Provides authoritative and encyclopedic coverage of not only the etiology and pathogenesis of the rheumatic diseases, but also of biology of the normal joint, immune and inflammatory responses, evaluation of the patient, musculoskeletal pain and the musculoskeletal exam, diagnostic tests and procedures, clinical pharmacology, and much more. This edition features a DVD-ROM that includes all of the images from the book, additional 4-color images not included in the text, video clips of general examinations (approx. length 45 minutes)and screening examinations (approx. length 30 minutes). Each chapter also has a set of multiple choice questions for use for board review study included on the DVD.

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Page Count

1104

Published Date

ISBN 10

0721601413

ISBN 13

9780721601410

Book's by William Melvin Kelley

A Different Drummer

A Different Drummer

A Drop of Patience

A Drop of Patience

Dis//Integration

Dis//Integration

Dunfords Travels Everywheres

Dunfords Travels Everywheres

A Drop of Patience

A Drop of Patience

Dunfords Travels Everywheres

Dunfords Travels Everywheres

Dis//Integration

Dis//Integration

dem

dem

Beloved Harlem

Beloved Harlem

A Different Drummer

A Different Drummer

New Day in Babylon

New Day in Babylon

Dancers on the Shore

Dancers on the Shore

Kelley's Textbook of Rheumatology

Kelley's Textbook of Rheumatology

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