Lewis Shiner. Black & White. Burton, MI: Subterranean Press, 2008.

Robert Cooper has lived in Texas most of his adult life, so why does he come to the VA hospital in Durham to die? His son, Michael, senses that there is something that Robert has kept to himself but now wants told. Michael hopes that his father’s deathbed revelations will clear up certain mysteries regarding his birth and his parents’ estrangement from his mother’s North Carolina relatives. Robert’s construction work in Durham in the 1960s is the key to these mysteries, and the novel links the Cooper family story to the larger tale of the destruction of Durham’s Hayti neighborhood. This is a satisfying work that is a thriller, a study of family dynamics, and a meditation on race.

Check this title’s availability in the UNC Library Catalog.

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Filed under 2000-2009, 2008, Durham, Mystery, Piedmont, Shiner, Lewis

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