Echo Tree

Starred review from March 22, 2021
This vital collection gathers the thrilling, variegated short fiction of Dumas, who in 1968 was killed by a police officer in New York City at the age of 33. A pair of vigorous introductory essays by Redmond and John Keene cast Dumas as an immensely influential writer, an heir to African and Black arts movements who sought to forge a new, emancipatory aesthetic. Dumas’s work exhibits a wide stylistic range, from realism, allegory, and folklore to trippy supernaturalism. Set largely in Arkansas and Harlem, the stories’ Black male protagonists negotiate hardscrabble and often mysterious landscapes. In “Harlem,” a stentorian street preacher maps out the “unexplored territory” of the Black soul, while in the title story, Dumas captures the needling camaraderie of young men fishing on the Mississippi, their laughter accompanied by a keen awareness of the danger of straying beyond circumscribed boundaries. In “Will the Circle Be Unbroken?” a rare instrument called an “afro-horn” gives a white cultural critic a more intense listening experience than he bargained for. The aural element culminates in “The Metagenesis of Sunra,” a vivid fable about a messiah figure crusading against forces of darkness. This collection resounds with a piercing voice that demands to be heard.

Starred review from March 15, 2021
The work of a late, lamented, and influential icon of the 1960s Black Arts Movement is brought back into print to connect with a post-millennial Black Lives Matter generations of readers--and writers. Dumas was two months shy of his 34th birthday when, in May 1968, he was shot and killed by a New York Transit Authority policeman in what was judged a case of mistaken identity. By that time, the Arkansas-born writer had already become something of a cult legend for his poetry and fiction, steeped in folkloric imagery, magical realism, and a haunting, deeply evocative lyricism that was near music. His short stories were posthumously collected in two volumes edited by his friend and de facto literary executor Redmond, and this book contains all those stories as well as some previously uncollected ones. Whether you're already familiar with Dumas or are just encountering him for the first time, such pieces as the title story, "A Boll of Roses," and the much-anthologized classic "Ark of Bones" administer a shock of recognition of how, at such a relatively early point in his career, Dumas achieved near mastery of narrative form, whether the gothic horror of "Rope of Wind," the allegorical cunning of "The University of Man," or the unsettling bare-bones naturalism of "The Crossing." Most of the stories deal with the raw-nerve perils and spiritual crises that come from growing up in the rural South while others, such as "Harlem," engage the hair-trigger tension of Black urban life in midcentury America. And there are times, as in "Devil Bird," when Dumas' phantasmagorical and metaphysical tendencies merge into wild and wicked farce. For all these stories' spellbinding attributes, some of them seem to trail off as if waiting for yet another draft to amplify or add on to their details. The newer stories seem like variations, even repetitions of previous themes. And yet, the last story, "The Metagenesis of Sunra," a tour de force of creation mythology and cosmic improvisation, submits yet another jolt of discovery, suggesting how Dumas, who always seemed ahead of his own, albeit brief, time, was capable of advancing African American storytelling art even further than one previously suspected. Every couple of decades or so, we need to be reminded of what made writers like Toni Morrison call Henry Dumas a genius.

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August 1, 2003
When Henry Dumas was killed in 1968, he was a promising young writer about to make a name for himself in African American literature. Some 35 years after his death, this collection of short stories shows more than promise; it is the work of a mature writer able to elevate ordinary life to the level of myth and to make myth and folklore a part of everyday life. From the musings of a field hand attracted to a pretty civil rights worker to the lethal strength of a sax solo, these stories celebrate the magic present in every moment and the awesome power of the African American spirit. While Dumas's work has appeared in previous anthologies, libraries will wish to purchase this complete one to give readers an opportunity to explore the timeless talent of a lesser-known treasure of African American literature. Recommend for all libraries.-Ellen Flexman, Indianapolis-Marion Cty. P.L., IN

Copyright 2003 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.