vsbedford 's review for:

Darktown by Thomas Mullen

5.0

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Beautifully written and painfully realistic - just prepare yourself to be raked over the coals. For me, this is one of those works of art that one admires and appreciates and never voluntarily reads again; I had to take this one at a few sittings or else I would lose my appreciation of the novel in my own anger. But, and this is a big one, the primacy and agency of Black people and the Black community in this story - think Mr. Tibbs and Easy Rawlins - is fantastic as this could easily have slipped into some Mississippi Burning nonsense.

I received an ecopy from the publishers and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.