4 Great Reads for Memorial Day Weekend
What could make the first weekend of summer more delightful than new fiction that sizzles? Read these on the deck.
By Dawn Raffel
3 of 4
Night Hawks
By Charles Johnson
192 pages;
Scribner
Best known for
his masterful novels and essays, Johnson wrote this rare story collection over
a period of 13 years—resulting in a masterpiece. Settings vary from
ancient Greece to the trail of escaping slaves to a Japanese monastery to contemporary
urban American life. Many of these short pieces feel like parables, as when an
isolated Buddhist priest discovers that "he himself had been supplying the
grief and satisfaction all along, from within." Others offer piercing
social commentary: "Every day the customers at Sassy Hair Salon and the
wigs lovingly check each other out, and then after long and careful
deliberation, the wigs always buy the women. Unstated, but permeating every
particle in that exchange of desire, is a profound, historical pain, a hurt
based on the lie that the hair one was unlucky enough to be born with can never
in this culture be good enough." Unflinching in his observations, Johnson ultimately
offers a message of empowerment and hope.
— Dawn Raffel
Published 05/15/2018