Strivers row : a novel /

Following the intricate yet gripping novels Dreamland 0 (1999) and Paradise0 Alley 0 (2002), Baker offers the last and equally compelling installment of his City of Fire series, which is set during critical periods in the history of New York City. But the true significance of the trilogy lies in its transcendence. Regardless of the novels' setting in the nation's megalopolis, what the characters experience, and the cultural trends that define and shape those experiences, reflects the trends and conditions in the country at large. In his new novel, Baker tracks within the robust atmosphere of 1940s Harlem two separate paths toward personal empowerment taken by two black men with very different backgrounds. As usual for Baker, he mixes actual historical figures with fictional ones: in this case, Malcolm Little, a young man who knew only poverty and hardship growing up in Michigan and fled to Harlem to find the opportunity to improve his life--and became Malcolm X; and Jonah Dove, a Harlem preacher (in Baker's endnotes, he reveals that Jonah is an "amalgam of Harlem ministers, past and present") who was raised in privilege, sent to college, and bears the advantage and disadvantage of being light enough to pass as white. With considerable historical knowledge and narrative fluidity, Baker renders their conflicts and choices as paradigmatic of the situations in which blacks found themselves during that era before the civil rights movement began in full. --Brad Hooper Copyright 2005 Booklist

Played out against the backdrop of Harlem in 1943, this generally engaging, sometimes dense third novel from Baker (following the bestselling Dreamland and Paradise Alley) reimagines the early days of Malcolm Little-the man who became Malcolm X. As depicted by Baker, the young Malcolm is quick-witted, eager, reckless and impulsive, but also sensitive and possessing a strong sense of justice. These qualities lead to a chance encounter in which he helps Jonah Dove (the Dove family is familiar from Paradise Alley), a young Harlem minister who is struggling with his own demons as the fair-skinned leader of a black church that has not truly embraced him, despite his being the only son of the church's much-beloved founder; Dove's unfolding story (including his struggles with passing) deepens Malcolm's. The book stays within what's already known about Malcolm X's early adulthood, but Baker covers the territory carefully. He also thoroughly captures the figures (Adam Clayton Powell Jr., West Indian Archie, the Collyer brothers, etc.) and micropolitical climate of wartime Harlem: munitions factories have brought jobs to the struggling community, but low wages, rationing, racial hostilities and an increasing military and police presence makes for possibly explosive combinations. When these tensions do reach the breaking point, Baker lends the resulting fray a visceral reality. (Feb.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

Baker completes his New York trilogy (Dreamland; Paradise Alley) with a penetrating look at World War II-era Harlem. The fictional Jonah Dove is heir to one of Harlem's great churches but is unable to emerge from his famous father's shadow; the historical Malcolm Little is caught in a cycle of petty crime and drugs but will soon discover Islam and his role as a political leader under the name of Malcolm X. Drawing heavily on The Autobiography of Malcolm X and other biographical sources, Baker's novel turns an icon into a living, breathing character full of contradiction and desperation. Jonah, the descendant of Paradise Alley's Dove family, struggles with his desire to pass for white and the contradictory desire to come into his own as a great preacher. As with Baker's previous titles, here fictional and historical characters rub elbows, and the true protagonist is New York City itself, replete with lowlifes, politicians, and hard-working individuals, a swirl of ethnicities and simmering tensions ready to detonate at any given moment. This fine historical series belongs in most fiction collections. [See Prepub Alert, LJ 10/15/05.]-Andrea Kempf, Johnson Cty. Community Coll. Lib., Overland Park, KS (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

World War II Harlem is the setting for the parallel stories of a preacher (invented) and a hustler (the future Malcolm X) in Baker's fourth novel, which concludes his New York-based trilogy. A Harlem minister, Jonah Dove, is returning by train to New York from Martha's Vineyard with his wife Amanda. Jonah, light enough to pass for white, and his much darker wife are saved from a mob of racist soldiers by an intrepid railroad sandwich man, 18-year-old Malcolm Little, leaving Jonah feeling impotent and humiliated. His famous father Milton (now 94) once led former slaves out of Virginia to form his first congregation. On retirement, he installed Jonah as his successor and even arranged his marriage; no surprise, then, that Jonah feels unworthy of his congregation and the too-perfect Amanda. Meanwhile, Malcolm, new to Harlem, is like a kid at Christmas, checking out the Savoy, Small's Paradise and an anything-goes rent party. He falls in love with a beautiful white girl at the Savoy; he works as a waiter, a numbers runner, a drug dealer and a john-walker; he even has visions of Elijah Muhammad, though this reckless young blood has yet to touch bottom. Baker alternates between his two leads (goodbye, narrative momentum) while dipping frequently into their pasts. Scenes from Malcolm's grim Michigan childhood are interwoven with striking vignettes of Elijah and Wallace Fard, his bizarre mentor; Jonah's darkest hour occurred after rejection by his college buddies (they discovered he was colored). Affecting both men is a Harlem seething with anger at its army of occupation (the white cops) while black soldiers are being brutalized down South. Baker ends with an unlikely transformation. Wimpy Jonah, who has even botched his brief the-hell-with-it-all departure from home and church, returns to deliver a triumphant sermon, rescue Malcolm from a cop and defuse a race riot. Baker the social historian (he's pretty good) trumps the novelist (not so hot) in this overstuffed novel whose parts are better than the whole. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.