|
|
| Blue Nile Press |
PO Box 188213
Sacramento, CA 95818-8213 |
Phone and fax:
916-288-3060 |
| Email Us |
|
| |
| |
| |
| |
|
|
|
| Wimbey's Corner by David Covin |
| Engaging dialogue and gripping action contoured with cultural details and historical insight recreate a transformative moment in the African American experience. The global setting is World War II, and the impact of racial repression and segregation is illuminated in the adventures of characters that ultimately converge in the imaginary community of Wimbey’s Corner. |
| The provocative, erotic portrayal of desire and identity in the character Wayne Hunter is reminiscent of Richard Wright’s Bigger Thomas of a similar era and genre. Wayne’s extraordinary physique defines and sabotages his masculinity, while his primal, sexual appetite undermines his consciousness and seals his fate. The shocking ending to Wimbey’s Corner is a disturbing resolution to the irreconcilable double consciousness of a community nestled in the distorted shadows of wealthy, white America. |
| David Covin has written a fascinating novel that reveals and explains certain unresolved consequences lurking in racial memory. |
| Melba Joyce Boyd, author of Wrestling with the Muse and Death Dance of a Butterfly. |
| With a talent for vivid prose, David Covin interweaves stories of quietly desperate, often quirky, yet invariably resolute black individuals whose lives converge at Wimbey’s Corner. |
| A small “dark colony” precariously ensconced in an otherwise exclusive neighborhood of white millionaires in the north shore Chicago suburb of Evanston, Illinois, Wimbey’s Corner is Eskeridge Wimbey’s supreme act of defiance against white privilege. He devotes the bulk of his vast wealth to the Maroon Foundation, dedicated to ensuring that “a festering enclave of coons” own that small piece of land in perpetuum. The central action of the novel takes place after Wimbey residents have evolved their own sense of mission: abhorring ostentation, keeping one another’s secrets, and dealing with crimes without police intervention. |
| Like many good tales, Wimbey’s Corner is dominated by the history of its villain, Wayne Hunter. After killing a man in self-defense, he flees to the meanest streets of Chicago. More a tragically flawed figure than an embodiment of pure evil, his story is a bizarre inversion of Frederick Douglass’s triumphant cultivation of literacy, his downfall an uneasy affirmation of the ruthless solidarity and self-reliance of Wimbey’s Corner. |
| Chauncey Ridley, Professor of English, CSU Sacramento. |
| Author |
Dr. David Covin |
| David Covin is Emeritus Professor of Government and Pan African Studies at California State University, Sacramento. He and his wife, Judy, an R.N., have two daughters: Wendy and Holly. They have three grandchildren: Nicola, William, and Claire. They live in Sacramento, with the Akita, Midori. |
| |
Book Signings |
Thursday, September 27 @ Orca Books
509 4th Avenue
East Olympia, WA 98501
Saturday August 20th at Los Angeles Black Books Expo
L.A. Convention Center
1201 Figueroa St.
Los Angeles, CA 90015
June 23, 2011 at Eso Won Bookstore
4331 Degnan Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90008
Saturday, June 4, 2011 from 2-4pm at Carol’s Books
1913 Del Paso Boulevard,
Sacramento, CA 95815
(916) 335.9094
Saturday, June 11, 2011 from 2-4 pm at Underground Books
2814 35th Street,
Sacramento, CA 95817
(916) 737-3333 |
| |
| Reviews: |
| Listed in the Olympian newspaper:# 1 Best-Seller at Orca Books (October 9, 2011) |
With a talent for uncluttered, exquisitely vivid prose, David Covin interweaves the small stories of the quietly desperate, often quirky, yet invariably resolute black individuals whose lives converge at Wimbey's Corner, encompassing a vastly diverse range of African-American experience and history: from the 1870s to the mid-1940s, from the rural South to the south side of Chicago, from San Francisco to the beachheads of the Pacific theater of WWII. Comic and violent, sordid and genteel, pastoral, suburban, and metropolitan, Wimbey's Corner offers a unique perspective of African-American integration - less a novel of Civil Rights activism than of tireless black cunning balanced on a razor's edge. A small, dark colony; precariously ensconced in an otherwise exclusive neighborhood of white millionaires in the north shore Chicago suburb of Evanston, Illinois, Wimbey's Corner is Eskeridge Wimbey's supreme act of defiance against white privilege. A self-made millionaire, he sells his business interests, consolidates his investments, and devotes the bulk of his vast wealth to the Maroon Foundation, dedicated to ensuring that a festering enclave of coons would own that small piece of land in perpetuum. Then, with a businessman's eye for personnel, he chooses the Corner's tenants as scrupulously as he cultivates their independence, obliging them to devise their own schemes for staving off the assaults of their continually offended white neighbors. The central action of the novel takes place after Eskeridge's death in 1938, once Wimbey residents have evolved their own sense of mission: abhorring ostentation, keeping one another's secrets, and dealing with crimes without police intervention that could be instrumental in supplanting them. Like many good tales, Wimbey's Corner is dominatd by the history of its villain. The gravest threat to the Corner, Wayne Hunter, is born and raised so deep in the backwoods of Kentucky that he has never seen a railroad before the draft board tracks him down in1940. Although physically intimidating, he is illiterate and fails the selective service exam. Shamed by his failure, he learns to read and lands a job in the nearest town. Then, after killing a man in self-defense, he flees to the meanest streets of Chicago, becomes an enforcer for a pimp, and develops a taste for that flashy, sordid lifestyle. Nevertheless, for the sake of his wife and son, he superficially cultivates the middle class manners and diction of Wimbey residents and, by dint of dogged persistence, acquires a home at the Corner. More a tragically flawed figure than an embodiment of pure evil, his story is a bizarre inversion of Frederick Douglass's triumphant cultivation of literacy, and his downfall is an uneasy affirmation of the rather ruthless solidarity and self-reliance of Wimbey's Corner, whereas the end of the novel optimistically anticipates a new infusion of black love and exemplary black manhood. --Chauncey Ridley, Professor of English, CSU, Sacramento
Engaging dialogue and gripping action contoured with cultural details and historical insight recreate a transformative moment in the African American experience. The global setting is WWII, and the impact of racial repression and segregation is illuminated in the adventures of characters that ultimately converge in the imaginary community of Wimbey's Corner. The provocative, erotic portrayal of desire and identity in the character Wayne Hunter is reminiscent of Richard Wright's Bigger Thomas of a similar era and genre. Wayne's extraordinary physique defines and sabotages is masculinity, while his primal, sexual appetite undermines his consciousness and seals his fate. The shocking ending to Wimbey's Corner is a disturbing resolution to the irreconcilable double consciousness of a community nestled in the distorted shadows of wealthy, white America. David Covin has written a fascinating novel that reveals and explains certain unresolved consequences lurking in racial memory. --Melba Joyce Boyd, author of Wrestling with the Muse, and Death Dance of a Butterfly
From country bumpkin down south, to Chicago citified pimp, to coveted Evanston resident, Wayne Hunter always searches for more through his own lust and greed. As we enter the characters of Wimbey's Corner, David Covin spins a fascinating coming of age tale of one Black man's search for his larger than life aspirations. --Linda Goodrich, Chair & Professor, Department of Theater & Dance, CSU Sacramento |
|
| |
| Reviewed by Emanuel Carpenter |
At first glance, one might think that “Wimbey's Corner” is a story about a big and black country bumpkin' named Wayne Hunter who moves from a small town in Kentucky to the big bad city of Chicago and gets in way over his head when he gets involved with a pimp known as Light. Though he may have had an incident in Kentucky that will live with him for the rest of his life, nothing will be as life-altering as his transformation to big city life and the big city world of pimps, hoes, and danger. Yes, it's about that but more.
As one reads further, one may think the book is about the history and present times of a strange and wonderful community of Negroes in Evanston, Illinois in the 1940s, called Wimbey's Corner. Strange, because it is a microcosm of blacks living amongst a community of white millionaires. Wonderful, because the community is unlike the mean streets of Chicago. Neighbors look after each other and protect one another’s secrets. Blacks speak properly. And an education at the finest schools is possible. It is about that too.
One might even think the book is about Tommy Brown, a black World War II sailor, who has a thing for fine ladies and a bad temper that lands him in hot water. Keep in mind, we're talking the 1940s where racism exists in the form of Jim Crow; it exists in the streets, and it even exists in the military, hurting the very servicemen defending the country. Or a person might think it’s about Tommy finding the love of his life in a single mother named Electa. It is about that as well.
“Wimbey's Corner,” you might say, is even about strong and unforgettable characters like Mackenzie Sweet who vows to be the longest living Negro ever and even revels when other black people die (He even loves war and the Ku Klux Klan since they’re both responsible for the deaths of so many Negroes other than himself.). Or you could say it's about Wayne Hunter and the uncontrollable lust and hunger that fill his head when it comes to beautiful women. And yes, it could even be about Tommy Brown, a proud sailor who has been hurt by love in his past but somehow finds a way to love again when it comes to the beautiful Electa. |
|
|
