Jazz and Twelve O'Clock Tales: New Stories

by Wanda Coleman

Los Angeles is the setting for 13 stories in this collection from writer and poet Wanda Coleman. Many of the characters in these stories lead lonely lives full of longing and potential stifled by racism, poverty, and absurd accidents of fate. And yet, even though they are trapped by the present moment, their inner lives are glowing, a mirror of the city of angels in which they live, a metropolis, “always simmering,” as Coleman writes in the final story, “ever waiting to be borne on that balmy promised crescendo.”
Coleman applies a poet’s economy of words to her fiction, setting a scene with lightning-quick strokes, letting a detail, a dialogue, or the brisk vernacular speak for itself. Or, alternatively, she will step in and take center stage, an omniscient voice seeing beyond the impending and inevitable tragedy, but powerless to change either narrative or outcome. Powerless, that is, only within the bounds of the story, for Coleman is an author devoted to change, personal and political, writing to affect the balance of power in America.

Genres: Short Stories, Fiction

147 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2007

About the author

Coleman was born Wanda Evans, and grew up in the Watts neighborhood of Los Angeles during the 1960s. She received fellowships from the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation, The NEA, and the California Arts Council (in fiction and in poetry). She was the first C.O.L.A. literary fellow (Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs, 2003). Her numerous honors included an Emmy in Daytime Drama writing, The 1999 Lenore Marshall Prize (for "Bathwater Wine"), and a nomination for the 2001 National Book Awards (for "Mercurochrome"). She was a finalist for California poet laureate (2005).

Reviews

[Robert Morgan Fisher · Rating 5 out of 5]

Exquisite and vastly underrated collection of hard-boiled fiction. Her prose is every bit as good as her poetry, possibly even better.

[Darryl · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is a collection of short stories about working class African-Americans living in Los Angeles, and their daily struggles, loves, frustrations, and dreams. Ms. Coleman is an accomplished poet, and the best stories in this book were the shorter ones, especially "Joy Ride", "Pepper", and "Backcity Transit by Day", which were hauntingly beautiful, like a Billie Holiday solo.

However, I did not enjoy most of the longer pieces to the same degree, with the exception of "Winona's Choice", in which a struggling young woman is caught between an old flame and famous actor, who re-enters her life after her husband is tragically killed, and his running buddy from childhood, who the actor envies and uses the woman against him to even an old score. The characters in the other stories were not as well developed or compelling.

[Ginger · Rating 5 out of 5]

passionate riffs on modern life