Reflex and Bone Structure

by Clarence Major

Weaves a mystery in which imagination and fiction become tangled with reality

Genres: African American, Novels, Fiction

138 pages, Paperback

Published January 1, 1996

About the author

Currently a professor of twentieth century American literature at the University of California at Davis, Clarence Major is a poet, painter and novelist who was born in Atlanta and grew up in Chicago.
Clarence Major was a finalist for the National Book Awards (1999). He is recipient of many awards, among them, a National Council on The Arts Award (1970), a Fulbright (1981-1983), a Western States Book Award (1986) and two Pushcart prizes--one for poetry, one for fiction. Major is a contributor to many periodicals and anthologies in the USA, Europe, South America and Africa. He has served as judge for The National Book Awards, the PEN-Faulkner Award and twice for the National Endowment for The Arts. Major has traveled extensively and lived in various parts of the United States and for extended periods in France and Italy. He has lectured and read his work in dozens of U. S. universities as well as in England, France, Liberia, West Germany, Ghana, and Italy.

Reviews

[MJ Nicholls · Rating 3 out of 5]

Metafictional fragments, loose and lascivious. Surreal, absorbing, incorrigible prose flexes in keeping with the extempore nature of publisher Fiction Collective from whence this first spawned. For devotees of avant-garde fiction only.

[Colin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Like an anatomical drawing in smoke. Or Etch a Sketch. Things get wiped and dissolve easily, quickly. Great read if you put your faith in Major's images. Not good if you like things squared and resolved in any conventional method.

[Brendan (book boss) Riley · Rating 2 out of 5]

I think that I didn’t get it frankly!

[Starlon · Rating 5 out of 5]

An experience, a look into the mind of an obsessed author or lover or manager or something else. I don't know. Its like As I Lay Dying without the rails (I guess)

[Phil Overeem · Rating 4 out of 5]

Book #7 (or so) in my self-taught "Greg Tate Recommends" lit class. I am Afro-Futurist pre-literate, so some of this eluded me, but I enjoyed what didn't.