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Makeda

by Randall Robinson
Open Lens: Akashic. Sept. 2011. c.350p. ISBN 9781617750229. pap. $15.95. F
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Gray Marsh is close to his blind grandmother, who entrusts him with stories of past lives she experiences in dreams. Her vivid dreams of a childhood in Africa include many facts that should be unknown to her, including customs, geographical features, and astronomical observations made by the Dogon people. Gray investigates these claims as he grows older and establishes himself in the academic community, and he comes to see himself and his grandmother as exceptionally connected to an African past. A journey to Mali predictably confirms not only the mystical details of his grandmother's visions but also the narrator's growing belief that he has been educationally shortchanged by the Western canon.
VERDICT Robinson (The Debt: What America Owes to Blacks) attempts to craft a unique coming-of-age novel set in a racially divided America, but his story is flawed by repetitive and didactic passages that veer frequently into polemic. A controversial novel on history and race that may interest readers of African and African American history.
Reviewed by John R. Cecil, Austin, TX , Aug 01, 2011
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