222. Five-Carat Soul

Rating:  ☆☆☆☆

Recommended by:

Author:  James McBride

Genre:  Fiction, Short Stories

320 pages, published September 26, 2017

Reading Format:  Audio Book

 

Summary

Winner of the U.S. National Book Award, Five-Carat Soul is a selection of short stories which focus on different African-American experiences. The stories feature a purgatory where a boxer and the other souls must make a case for themselves, a poor Pennsylvania neighborhood called The Bottom, telepathic zoo animals, a zealous toy collector and an eavesdropping Abraham Lincoln.

 

Quotes 

“The sadder the story, the more valuable the toy. That is a human element and it’s one that no painting has. The specific history of sorrow or joy in a child’s life, when determining the price, means the sky’s the limit.”

 

..an innocent child paying for generations of stolen trains, stolen cars, stolen land, stolen horses, stolen history, stolen people arriving at a strange land inside a merchant…                      

 

“Most cars drove through there because the drivers is either from The Bottom and wanna get home – or they ain’t from The Bottom and wanna get home in one piece.”

 

My Take

I really enjoyed all of the stories in Five-Carat Soul, especially the first one which delves into the arcane field of toy collecting. McBride, a masterful writer, draws the reader in with rich details into the various worlds he creates.  I listened to the audio version of this book and highly recommend it.  There are different narrators for each story and the voice work is excellent.