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Juice!: A Novel
A new novel from the most outspoken African-American writer of our time.
344 pages, Kindle Edition
First published April 5, 2011
About the author
Ishmael Reed
144 books450 followersIshmael Scott Reed is an American poet, essayist, and novelist. A prominent African-American literary figure, Reed is known for his satirical works challenging American political culture, and highlighting political and cultural oppression.
Reed has been described as one of the most controversial writers. While his work has often sought to represent neglected African and African-American perspectives, his energy and advocacy have centered more broadly on neglected peoples and perspectives irrespective of their cultural origins.
Reed has been described as one of the most controversial writers. While his work has often sought to represent neglected African and African-American perspectives, his energy and advocacy have centered more broadly on neglected peoples and perspectives irrespective of their cultural origins.
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Displaying 1 - 23 of 23 reviews
August 14, 2013
The most recent novel by Reed is an excellent composite of standard-issue zany antics, canny armchair reportage, ropey cartoon work, and furious editorialising. The O.J. Simpson trial and its aftermath(s) is the ostensible “subject” of the novel, alongside the career trials of the implausibly successful cartoonist Paul Blessings, whose narration we are tempted to take as Reed’s, but refuse to for we are enlightened. In a series of short chapters and diary-entries-as-chapters, Reed riffs on the O.J. case, leaning on the opinion that his trial dredged up a virulent strain of racism among a certain band of American whites, as though in the flick of a switch they could revert to their black-hating attitudes, and that the media response to his case opened up a sewer of bigotry and celebrity pant-sniffing that will come to define the first decade of this century. The hybrid Reed has created here is excellent: the unconventional structure and approach fits the mania of the subject matter perfectly. Reed’s relentlessness as a satirist is on show here, never lapsing into overly kooky absurdism or a wealth of trivial trivia.
July 26, 2024
The late afternoon of the Bronco chase interrupted Asis and I from leaving my house to go out and shake some action. My childhood home, where we watched this as a novelty we could not know was a sea change in the evils of media, was no more than a quarter-mile from the 405 that OJ and Al drove right past. I lived right at the transitional zone between Orange and LA Counties and something changed that evening. It was palpable. We both knew it. Out and drinking, everyone knew it. There was a slime coat over everything. I remember it like yesterday—and I don’t remember the literal yesterday.
Fast forward: I’m living w a partner for the first time. All of 18? About right. We had the chance to watch her uncle’s very small farm. Trying to wring out a hangover, I watched the verdict.
I went outside and told Sara. That was, nearly 30 years on, the only day I rode a horse.
_______
The visceral incantations Reed summons here are very specific to a time that was cloaked in a miasma of unease. Law as televised sport entertainment. Unbidden voyeurism. Schadenfreude.
The fix was in, and I’m not talking about OJ. Here is the birth of a Now I reject. Pain as a commodity for profit: the corporations found a perfect vehicle in the Juice. Just ask the makers of Broncos in ‘95.
Fast forward: I’m living w a partner for the first time. All of 18? About right. We had the chance to watch her uncle’s very small farm. Trying to wring out a hangover, I watched the verdict.
I went outside and told Sara. That was, nearly 30 years on, the only day I rode a horse.
_______
The visceral incantations Reed summons here are very specific to a time that was cloaked in a miasma of unease. Law as televised sport entertainment. Unbidden voyeurism. Schadenfreude.
The fix was in, and I’m not talking about OJ. Here is the birth of a Now I reject. Pain as a commodity for profit: the corporations found a perfect vehicle in the Juice. Just ask the makers of Broncos in ‘95.
September 27, 2011
yes indeed, the cover here http://www.dalkeyarchive.com/book/?GC... is much better and VERY important to the story. some idiot (read the oligarchic media emperor B. S. Rathswheeler, hint: he's antipodal) probably had a hand behind this cover mixup. But anyway, a very fast read about a nyc cartoonist, artist, and bohemian who becomes obsessed by the OJ trial(s) and gets in trouble with his newspaper for having a cartoon depicting OJ "juicing" the media, ie..calling the plays, that the circus has become, the age of 24 "news" and demise of newspapers. The newspaper management interprets the cartoon as OJ sodomizing the USA in the guise of a blonde in pigtails. So you can see why i am going on and on about the cover.
read this funny, quirky novel if you need a fresh perspective on race, news, politics, and art in usa today. yes, it's obsessive, about an obssessvie and self-referential, but good family fun too.
read this funny, quirky novel if you need a fresh perspective on race, news, politics, and art in usa today. yes, it's obsessive, about an obssessvie and self-referential, but good family fun too.
April 1, 2019
O.J. says that he wants to go to Nicole's graveside and commit suicide by blowing his brains out with a Magnum. Part of me says yes, yes, please do. But this is a brother. Am I so concerned about my own safety that I wish a brother who is a suspect in a murder of a blonde kill himself rather than put the rest of us in jeopardy by our being associated with him? Giving the enemy ammunition to harass us with their demonic media equipment forever. Naomi Campbell is right. When they do O.J., they're doing us.
Sure, it's The Juice on trial, but his trial becomes a ritualistic mock lynching of all black men, the same way that Willie Horton was used to signify on the brothers.
This biting and witty satire about the 1995 O.J. Simpson murder trial and the reaction to it by the U.S. media is narrated by Paul "Bear" Blessings, a middle aged African American cartoonist employed by KCAK, an alternative television station in NYC that has recently been purchased by a new owner and run by his son, who has replaced the station's former progressive programming with hosts who are more appealing to a conservative audience of viewers. Bear is kept on staff mainly to appease the station's critics, who accuse the new ownership of discrimination and fanning the flames of hatred against racial and religious minorities and women. The station's most popular program is Nigguz News, which portrays the worst elements of African American culture, to show its viewers what black people are really like.
Bear and his fellow members of the Rhinosphere, a group of African American professional artists, are outraged by the coverage of the trial by the media, particularly its prejudicial treatment and condemnation of O.J. (whose nickname is The Juice), who is portrayed as a rich and uppity black man who has committed two unspeakable crimes: marrying a beautiful white woman (and, even worse, a blonde), and viciously murdering her. In response, Bear draws a satirical cartoon (shown on the book's cover) in which he portrays O.J. as a quarterback about to receive a football from a woman who is meant to represent the U.S. media, to demonstrate that O.J. is running plays for the trial obsessed radio, television and newspaper broadcasters and columnists. However, one of his conservative colleagues at KCAK, a Hispanic woman whose popularity is based on her rants against her fellow Latinos, is aghaist when she first sees it, as she interprets it as O.J. sodomizing a white woman, and Bear is condemned by the new ownership and put on probation.
Bear continues to follow the O.J. murder trial obsessively, as he recognizes that all black men are, in essence, also on trial, and are being held guilty by association with him. His narrative provides an excellent summary of the details of the trial, along with prejudicial comments made by well known members of the media, along with its aftermath after O.J.'s acquittal. Reed makes the case that this post-trial outrage led to the rise and popularity of right wing media outlets such as Fox News, which commenced operations in 1996, and of conservative talk radio personalities such as Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck and Sean Hannity, along with the Telecommunications Act of 1996 that allowed companies to own more stations and for some programs to become nationally syndicated and exposed to a wider audience. He also demonstrates that the fallout from the O.J. trial explains the harsh, prejudicial and hypocritical treatment of Barack Obama by the right wing media during his eight years in the White House, who continue to largely ignore and overlook the current president's innumerable moral sins and personal shortcomings.
Juice! is one of the best satirical novels I've ever read, and it is a great introduction to Ishmael Reed. I'm ashamed that it took me this long to get to one of his novels, but I'll read the other books I own by him in the near future, starting with Mumbo Jumbo, his most acclaimed work.
Sure, it's The Juice on trial, but his trial becomes a ritualistic mock lynching of all black men, the same way that Willie Horton was used to signify on the brothers.
This biting and witty satire about the 1995 O.J. Simpson murder trial and the reaction to it by the U.S. media is narrated by Paul "Bear" Blessings, a middle aged African American cartoonist employed by KCAK, an alternative television station in NYC that has recently been purchased by a new owner and run by his son, who has replaced the station's former progressive programming with hosts who are more appealing to a conservative audience of viewers. Bear is kept on staff mainly to appease the station's critics, who accuse the new ownership of discrimination and fanning the flames of hatred against racial and religious minorities and women. The station's most popular program is Nigguz News, which portrays the worst elements of African American culture, to show its viewers what black people are really like.
Bear and his fellow members of the Rhinosphere, a group of African American professional artists, are outraged by the coverage of the trial by the media, particularly its prejudicial treatment and condemnation of O.J. (whose nickname is The Juice), who is portrayed as a rich and uppity black man who has committed two unspeakable crimes: marrying a beautiful white woman (and, even worse, a blonde), and viciously murdering her. In response, Bear draws a satirical cartoon (shown on the book's cover) in which he portrays O.J. as a quarterback about to receive a football from a woman who is meant to represent the U.S. media, to demonstrate that O.J. is running plays for the trial obsessed radio, television and newspaper broadcasters and columnists. However, one of his conservative colleagues at KCAK, a Hispanic woman whose popularity is based on her rants against her fellow Latinos, is aghaist when she first sees it, as she interprets it as O.J. sodomizing a white woman, and Bear is condemned by the new ownership and put on probation.
Bear continues to follow the O.J. murder trial obsessively, as he recognizes that all black men are, in essence, also on trial, and are being held guilty by association with him. His narrative provides an excellent summary of the details of the trial, along with prejudicial comments made by well known members of the media, along with its aftermath after O.J.'s acquittal. Reed makes the case that this post-trial outrage led to the rise and popularity of right wing media outlets such as Fox News, which commenced operations in 1996, and of conservative talk radio personalities such as Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck and Sean Hannity, along with the Telecommunications Act of 1996 that allowed companies to own more stations and for some programs to become nationally syndicated and exposed to a wider audience. He also demonstrates that the fallout from the O.J. trial explains the harsh, prejudicial and hypocritical treatment of Barack Obama by the right wing media during his eight years in the White House, who continue to largely ignore and overlook the current president's innumerable moral sins and personal shortcomings.
Juice! is one of the best satirical novels I've ever read, and it is a great introduction to Ishmael Reed. I'm ashamed that it took me this long to get to one of his novels, but I'll read the other books I own by him in the near future, starting with Mumbo Jumbo, his most acclaimed work.
June 2, 2011
Love 'em or hate 'em, Ismael Reed does provoke some serious thinking. The way I feel about this novel is like this: I can agree with Ismael Reed's overall condemnation of the rabid race-baiting media exploitation at the O.J. trial and how it triggered the collective American unconscious of race relations and still believe O.J. is guilty of the crime of murder. By the end of the novel the protagonist "Bear" isn't quite so sure either. There are some unfortunate sexist and homophobic elements in the novel but I think Reed's handles this well--as if he's taking a step back in a metafictional way and satirizing his own reputation. In some passages, I thought Reed sounded almost Celine-like in his over the top condemnations. If you're a Reed fan, you'll find him in top form; if not, you might find yourself at odds, even riled, by this novel.
August 12, 2013
I appreciate Ishmael Reed's critiques of racism and the collusion between media and the state in oppressing black people. This book also contains problematic gender and gay bashing. Unique voice and perspective, but I did feel like I had to push myself to keep reading and finish.
Interesting timing to read about race and the way the U.S. approaches justice, guilt, and innocence in the wake of the Zimmerman verdict. (I'd had a library hold for a while but just picked up the book late last week.) I don't know that I would have finished the book otherwise.
Interesting timing to read about race and the way the U.S. approaches justice, guilt, and innocence in the wake of the Zimmerman verdict. (I'd had a library hold for a while but just picked up the book late last week.) I don't know that I would have finished the book otherwise.
August 24, 2018
Um, maybe some of this hasn't aged too well. Any time Reed brings up Bill Cosby, I take a drink, but not because this is a fun drinking game-- it's just a bit necessary. That being said, Reed has a lot of pertinent things to say about the way about the media's use and abuse of black men. I just don't know if I care to hear him on issues of gender and queerness ever again. The structure of this novel is in itself interesting; the human thrust of the plot often existing only in small glimpses, overwhelmed by the diatribe the narrator constructs on the subject of Orenthal James Simpson.
May 5, 2011
Ishmael Reed is back... and really pissed off in this scorched-earth satire.
August 13, 2011
A hilarious multi-layered satire, it will make you laugh, make you think, and make you cringe.
November 25, 2018
Ishmael Reed, the African-American satirist, has ruffled many feathers throughout his prolific career. Objections of many critics center around his relentless caricatures of White Middle Class (racist) Feminists and rather scathing indictments of equally racist members of the Gay and Lesbian Community. The outrage inspired by these caricatures is ironically the entire point of novels like Juice! a blend of fact and fiction that indicts the media for its public exploitation of the O.J. Simpson trial and the cultural reverberations of that precedent establishing ratings obsession with celebrity scandal. If readers are easily alienated by the politically incorrect depiction of "identity politics" perhaps they should ponder the words of Naomi Campbell quoted several times within Juice! that with the O.J. case all black men are guilty by proxy. If Feminism and the LGBT Community bristles at these depictions of racist Feminists and Gay Men perhaps they should recall that one satirical character does not represent them in totality and perhaps should inspire reflection upon the nature of cultural biases and privileges inherent to their political positions and rhetoric. The narrator "Bear" (Paul Blessings) is a diabetic former political cartoonist for an underground, viewer funded television program that gets bought out by a media conglomerate. He gets banned when a misinterpreted cartoon about the O.J. Simpson trial is leaked by a conservative female commentator and becomes obsessed with the injustice of the trial and its media coverage. Reed has done very thorough research, created a cast of parodies and ranted against the establishment, changing ideals and feared obsolescence (like Koots the Badger the cartoon character Bear is forced to "create" for the changing sensibilities of the viewers who believe that racial agitation was dated in our "postracial" culture). My only objection to the novel was that it was too long, at times repetitive and the tone would become shrill whenever Reed inserted himself to respond to criticism, which happened twice and once for quoting himself about "Neo-slave narratives." Although I have not read all of Reed's novels I would recommend Flight to Canada, Mumbo Jumbo, Reckless Eyeballing and the Terrible Twos and Threes before you investigate Juice!
October 18, 2021
This book had me cackling. Completely caustic, so aware of its' own paranoia, its' own limit as a book. Oscillating between reporting the facts of the O.J. Simpson case, the wider media effect that the case had in America, and a free-wheeling send up of news organizations losing their grasp of their own integrity. Absolutely hilarious, an amazing book.
February 9, 2016
I was a very big fan of Reed's early books. I especially like his creating a non-judeo christian base to his books. That said, while thought provoking, I often find him to be overly broad and over the top. Probably has more to do with how I've changed than him as an author.
December 22, 2019
I didn't not like it, but I think it was written for folks who experienced the oj trial
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February 17, 2020After reading this book, you may never watch television again. But, if you know the prophets row of great minds who have warned us of the dangers of media pollution, there's a good chance you can't watch it without irony now. Every time I try to compare Reed to other great writers, I have to stop myself, b/c Reed's aversion to certain writers is well documented, so I find myself saying, okay Reed is like...oh, wait, he can't stand that dude, okay, Reed is just like, no wait, he hates that dude too...Which sort of explains this text. I.R. takes on the American beast of--what passes for culture--virtually unlike any other writer. Save for maybe those in Reed's mutual admiration society; namely Thomas Pynchon and Don Delillo. Our obsession w/ celebrity over substance, celebrity as the new religion almost, largely begins w/ the OJ trial. No way we'd ever know what a Kardashian was without the "trial of the century" (which Reed adroitly points out that a century that had the Nuremburg Trials in it, but calls the Brentwood murders the trial of the century, must be a century of madness). And would we have the steady march to fascism without "news for profit"? This novel might actually be the first "twitter novel." Rapid fire, anarchic information coming at you, the threads of race, gender, class, patriarchy, you name it, it's here. Like Fellini's Fred in Fred and Ginger, Ish wants the people to know the game is rigged, and like the anarchist in Fellini's And The Ship Sailed On, he's got something for the swells. Not violence, but text, biting art work (wish there was more of it) and maybe, just maybe that the author can examine his own humanity about a changing world ? (Some might agree, others may not.) Not for everyone. But if you're a Reed loyalist, or a brave, very, very open minded Reader (and I hope you *are*) it's worth your time. (Provided that you can tear yourself away from the screens...)
October 8, 2023
Wow. I had intentionally kept myself ignorant of the details of the OJ trial. It wasn't hard, I was busy in college, had no TV and don't really bother with celebrity "news." All I knew for certain was that the whole thing was a shitshow from start to finish. Ishmael Reed has educated me and I can't say I'm happy about this new state of affairs.
So. This book is very strange. Published in 2011 (nearly two decades after the infamous pursuit of the white Bronco up the San Diego Freeway... yeah, I had been aware of that, anyway) Juice doesn't so much attempt to re-litigate the crimes but rather to examine the zeitgeist that gave rise to the shitty investigation, the laughable trial, and--especially--the media circus. (Why so late? I can only guess that Reed had been reminded and inspired(?) by Simpson's 2008 conviction for robbery.) The question is--was this post-mortem of any help in 2011? Was Reed's satirical look at society and the media in 1995 (and, to a lesser extent, in 2007/8) stale the moment it appeared? I am not sure. However, in an era where racially-motivated police abuses are being exposed and publicized with such depressing frequency, this book is probably more relevant now than at the time of its publication. A neat trick.
Definitely worth a read.
So. This book is very strange. Published in 2011 (nearly two decades after the infamous pursuit of the white Bronco up the San Diego Freeway... yeah, I had been aware of that, anyway) Juice doesn't so much attempt to re-litigate the crimes but rather to examine the zeitgeist that gave rise to the shitty investigation, the laughable trial, and--especially--the media circus. (Why so late? I can only guess that Reed had been reminded and inspired(?) by Simpson's 2008 conviction for robbery.) The question is--was this post-mortem of any help in 2011? Was Reed's satirical look at society and the media in 1995 (and, to a lesser extent, in 2007/8) stale the moment it appeared? I am not sure. However, in an era where racially-motivated police abuses are being exposed and publicized with such depressing frequency, this book is probably more relevant now than at the time of its publication. A neat trick.
Definitely worth a read.
January 12, 2021
Reed uses OJ to show how visible racism is in America. This book is weird, with undertones that remind me of The Sellout. But engrossing and interesting, like everything connected to OJ.
“Yet race loyalty among whites isn’t discussed...why haven’t the hundreds of cases over the last two hundred years (during which whites got off for killing blacks or not even charged, as in the case of lynchings,) set race relations back two hundred years? Why is it that only when blacks do something that offends whites, their actions set race relations back fifty years?”
“Yet race loyalty among whites isn’t discussed...why haven’t the hundreds of cases over the last two hundred years (during which whites got off for killing blacks or not even charged, as in the case of lynchings,) set race relations back two hundred years? Why is it that only when blacks do something that offends whites, their actions set race relations back fifty years?”
May 17, 2024
In what I believe is my fifth Ishmael Reed novel, I'm finding him to be as fresh as ever. While Juice! is often quite funny, it's also rightfully angry, and Reed's outrage is expressed through various outlets here: comics, television/radio and courtroom quotes, the style shifts occasionally from chapter to chapter, and sometimes jumps around chronologically. Yet, it never feels disjointed or messy. It's not the mad jazz fragmented masterpiece that Mumbo Jumbo is, but it's a great critique of the media.
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April 11, 2025I loved this book because it was very funny and made me think about the OJ Simpson trial in a critical way that I hadn't before. Maybe he did it *and* the trial was totally racist *and* the way the media handled it was totally racist *and* the police framed him *and* rich celebrities, regardless of their race, often don't give a shit about anyone but themselves. There's a grimness to Ishmael Reed's writing here that is tempered by real care for his ridiculous narrator, and it's totally unhinged. It's a really fun mix -- even if at times it jumps the shark a bit.
August 14, 2024
This book is wild. The breathless obsession with the OJ trial, the contrast between Bear’s identity politics and his casual homophobia/sexism/racism and the absurd third act all combine to make a very clever satire.
March 24, 2019
I'm not sure why but I thought this was pretty brilliant. An obsessive look at obsession in pop culture with a lot of painfully sharp things to say about race in America.
April 23, 2025
Funny and addictive. Less weird than the other books of his that I've read, which I was slightly disappointed by
February 7, 2026
Hm. There’s a lot of good stuff in this book, but the blatant sexism and homophobia started to feel like not just a flawed narrator but maybe the opinion of the author just a little?
Displaying 1 - 23 of 23 reviews