I Get on the Bus

by Reginald McKnight

The tale of a young African-American man's desultory quest for his own identity while living amidst the mysteries of modern-day Senegal. Battling a malarial fever, Evan Norris is taken in by the family of a powerful Marabou and finds himself absorbed in a world that is both ancient and modern.

304 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1990

Reviews

[J.I.]

An African-American slacker, who's best friends are white hippies and whose black psychologist girlfriend feels that black people and white people can never understand each other, joins the peace corps and goes to Senegal. While there, he comes down with Malaria and has a psychedelic trip through the country, dealing with modern and antique, medicine and magic, the real and the unreal.

Partly this book is about how American's view third world countries, partly this book is about the new American male and his struggles in a new society but mostly it is about the African-American experience--more particularly the search for identity. What makes you black? Is it simply your skin? Is it your culture? Is it your Africanness?

This book is difficult to sort out, confusing and bizarre, but it is in this way that it is able to get at the questions it seeks to answer.

[Jonathan · Rating 3 out of 5]

written under the premise of fiction, though it seems the plot is a bit too personal to be entirely fiction, though maybe the best fiction comes from reality.

[Kenzy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow,simply amazing. I was blown away by this book...