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Malcolm & Jack
Fiction. Ten years in its research and writing, MALCOLM & JACK is a wonder of recent American fiction: a novel that simultaneously introduces a powerful new voice and speaks powerfully about recent US history and the weight of empire. "Fast, hypnotic, and heartfelt, Malcolm & Jack somehow manages to be frenzied and reflective, factual and speculative, all at once. A wild dash through an alternate American history"--George Saunders.
- GenresFiction
287 pages, Paperback
First published July 15, 2006
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
November 14, 2019
"Jack fancies himself a rebel, but in certain ways, he's very respectful of authority."
January 19, 2008
New York is a 40's town,
Pelton's novel begins with a seemingly simple quip about setting, "New York is a 40's town." One instantly thinks of black and white film clips of USO shows, GI's on leave, Pete Seeger and Woody Guthrie singing "Dancing `round Hitler's Grave," and so on and so on. But this is not that New York and this is not about the Malcolm X and Jack Kerouac we know either. This is a novel about the other side of life, the criminal. The opposite of all we know, or better, seem to recall. The story is the Yang to the fictional/ mythical Ying of our greatest generation. One can instantly name the deeds of both Kerouac and X, however those people developed from the actions out of which these characters are born. Pelton easily eschews hard fact for whatever fits into his story (history) and provides us with a mixed portrait of a time when America is at war and our heroes are eagerly avoiding going to that war. A time when Billy Holiday is in jail, Kinsey is conducting his sexual research and homosexuality is without a doubt as immoral as it is illegal. They did happen didn't they? The myth we now understand, stand under is shattered in deft prose, a wandering style that is tight as it is loose. Pelton recreates the America that one wants to forget. The criminal past we wish to move away from and embrace our amber waves of grain. We understand Jack through his penis and Malcolm through his greed. We get a glimpse into the sex in a time when sex seemingly didn't happen. We are witness to male rage in many forms, going as far as attempted murder to keep sexual secrets secret. These all make up the great cancer no one talked about. Pelton does a cleaver dance and keeps this from a conformist's anti-hero novel, a coming of age blah or a traditional historical novel. This is something new and very exciting. I urge you to read this book!
Pelton's novel begins with a seemingly simple quip about setting, "New York is a 40's town." One instantly thinks of black and white film clips of USO shows, GI's on leave, Pete Seeger and Woody Guthrie singing "Dancing `round Hitler's Grave," and so on and so on. But this is not that New York and this is not about the Malcolm X and Jack Kerouac we know either. This is a novel about the other side of life, the criminal. The opposite of all we know, or better, seem to recall. The story is the Yang to the fictional/ mythical Ying of our greatest generation. One can instantly name the deeds of both Kerouac and X, however those people developed from the actions out of which these characters are born. Pelton easily eschews hard fact for whatever fits into his story (history) and provides us with a mixed portrait of a time when America is at war and our heroes are eagerly avoiding going to that war. A time when Billy Holiday is in jail, Kinsey is conducting his sexual research and homosexuality is without a doubt as immoral as it is illegal. They did happen didn't they? The myth we now understand, stand under is shattered in deft prose, a wandering style that is tight as it is loose. Pelton recreates the America that one wants to forget. The criminal past we wish to move away from and embrace our amber waves of grain. We understand Jack through his penis and Malcolm through his greed. We get a glimpse into the sex in a time when sex seemingly didn't happen. We are witness to male rage in many forms, going as far as attempted murder to keep sexual secrets secret. These all make up the great cancer no one talked about. Pelton does a cleaver dance and keeps this from a conformist's anti-hero novel, a coming of age blah or a traditional historical novel. This is something new and very exciting. I urge you to read this book!
July 20, 2011
Embellishing History: A Winsome Writing Style
MALCOLM & JACK AND OTHER FAMOUS AMERICAN CRIMINALS is time-lapse journey to post World War II America, a period that left the people of the world dissociative, confused, in pain, an din search for meaning after an event that all but completely eroded our psyches. Ted Pelton has transported us to that time and by populating his novel with characters the likes of Jack Kerouac and the rise of Beat poetry, Detroit Red (aka Malcolm X) and the beginnings of Black Power, Billie Holiday (Lady Day) and her battle (and imprisonment) with drug abuse almost shuttering her gift of song, William Burroughs and Allen Ginsberg and their confrontation with sexual variations, Alfred Kinsey and his frankness in altering human sexuality, to name only a few.
Pelton takes these famous icons and blends them together to wave a story that provides an understanding of the impetus for everything that was new in America - from the new music, to the new economy, to the McCarthy era of terrorism, to the changes in the visual and musical and written arts. Few authors have been able to recreate this inordinately strange atmosphere that still felt the debris of atomic bombs and the threat that America was as vulnerable as the rest of the globe. But Pelton ties all this somewhat disparate characters together so well that it feels like accurate history rather than the author's permission to alter facts for the sake of molding a memorable novel. It is written in the manner in which the characters spoke, it illuminates on every page, and it drives the reader steadily toward the ending that makes us realize the special heritage that resulted form a World War aftermath. History was changed - and so are we, the readers.
Grady Harp
MALCOLM & JACK AND OTHER FAMOUS AMERICAN CRIMINALS is time-lapse journey to post World War II America, a period that left the people of the world dissociative, confused, in pain, an din search for meaning after an event that all but completely eroded our psyches. Ted Pelton has transported us to that time and by populating his novel with characters the likes of Jack Kerouac and the rise of Beat poetry, Detroit Red (aka Malcolm X) and the beginnings of Black Power, Billie Holiday (Lady Day) and her battle (and imprisonment) with drug abuse almost shuttering her gift of song, William Burroughs and Allen Ginsberg and their confrontation with sexual variations, Alfred Kinsey and his frankness in altering human sexuality, to name only a few.
Pelton takes these famous icons and blends them together to wave a story that provides an understanding of the impetus for everything that was new in America - from the new music, to the new economy, to the McCarthy era of terrorism, to the changes in the visual and musical and written arts. Few authors have been able to recreate this inordinately strange atmosphere that still felt the debris of atomic bombs and the threat that America was as vulnerable as the rest of the globe. But Pelton ties all this somewhat disparate characters together so well that it feels like accurate history rather than the author's permission to alter facts for the sake of molding a memorable novel. It is written in the manner in which the characters spoke, it illuminates on every page, and it drives the reader steadily toward the ending that makes us realize the special heritage that resulted form a World War aftermath. History was changed - and so are we, the readers.
Grady Harp
January 22, 2008
Anyone who loves Jack Kerouac's recreations of 1940s America - from Times Square to rail yards to jazz clubs to mom's kitchen - will feel right at home with Ted Pelton's Malcolm & Jack. That's not because Pelton mimics Kerouac's style, but rather, because he succeeds at revisiting the mood, the ecstatic joy bubbling beneath all the state-issued gray flannel. Pelton spends equal time with Kerouac, Malcolm X, Billie Holiday, and an engagingly perverse subject from the Kinsey report. He also speculates on how these characters may have passed each other along their separate paths "back in the day." In short, Pelton spends time with some of the true-life genius creative and political characters (the word "criminals" is used in Pelton's title with a wink - although the incarcerations these people faced were very real) and delves into their lives in ways their own works - or even straight biography - never could. This is Grade A historical fiction for Beat, Jazz, and 1940s hipster aficionados.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews