Soul City

August 9, 2004
In a swamp of political mudslinging tomes, this charming and quirky fairy tale for grownups comes as a restful change. Stem-cell clashes? Foreign policy? Forget it. The mayoral race in Soul City hinges on one issue and one issue only: which candidate will make the best DJ, pumping the hippest music into the speakers that hang from every lamppost in the city. The citizens of this grooving utopia, which boasts "more mojo than any city in the world," are entirely separated from the rest of America, and they like it that way; it leaves them free to devour Granmama's biscuits by the bushel, drive around in cars that play only the driver's favorite singer, and attend St. Pimp's House of Baptist Rapture. When Cadillac Jackson, a journalist from Chocolate City
magazine, arrives to write an article about the election, he promptly falls in love with the seductive Mahogany Sunflower, but even more so with the city itself—the only place left in America where black really is beautiful. Imaginative, buoyant and slyly funny, this satire by magazine writer Touré (The Portable Promised Land
) is a delight to read and a pleasure to hum along to. Agent, Sarah Lazin.
5-city author tour.

May 15, 2004
More brilliant social satire after The Portable Promised Land; Tour finds the cracks in an African American utopia. With a five-city author tour.

Copyright 2004 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

September 1, 2004
Soul City is a place of uncertain geography founded by escaped slaves who could fly, a miraculous place where flowers grow out of the concrete, music is revered, and ailments are healed by doting grandmothers rather than doctors. According to Soul City legend, the escaped slaves blessed the citizens to live lives confined only by the boundaries of their dreams. Cadillac Jackson, an outsider and a writer trying to capture the essence of the community, falls in love with Mahogany Sunshine, the DJ in the Biscuit Shop and a direct descendant of the flying black folks. He struggles to reconcile what he sees and experiences with black culture lived in the "real" world, while the citizens of Soul City are in the midst of a pivotal mayoral election that will determine the sound track of their lives and the direction of their heritage. Toure, author of the short story collection " The Portable Promised Land " (2002), offers an imaginative allegory on black culture filled with magic realism and biting social commentary. (Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2004, American Library Association.)