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Dancing in the Dark
Paperback
Series: Vintage International
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ISBN10: 1400079837
ISBN13: 9781400079834
Publisher: Vintage
Published: Oct 10 2006
Pages: 224
Weight: 0.53
Height: 0.58 Width: 5.32 Depth: 7.98
Language: English
ISBN13: 9781400079834
Publisher: Vintage
Published: Oct 10 2006
Pages: 224
Weight: 0.53
Height: 0.58 Width: 5.32 Depth: 7.98
Language: English
In this searing novel, Caryl Phillips reimagines the life of the first black entertainer in the U.S. to reach the highest levels of fame and fortune.After years of struggling for success on the stage, Bert Williams (1874--1922), the child of recent immigrants from the Bahamas, made the radical decision to don blackface makeup and play the coon. Behind this mask he became a Broadway headliner-as influential a comedian as Chaplin, Laurel and Hardy, and W. C. Fields, who called him the funniest man I ever saw, and the saddest man I ever knew. It is this dichotomy at Williams' core that Phillips explores in this richly nuanced, brilliantly written novel, unblinking in its attention to the sinister compromises that make up an identity.
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