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Reckless Eyeballing
It's the 1980s and the politics of the New York theater scene have taken yet another turn.
148 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1986
7 people are currently reading
332 people want to read
About the author
Ishmael Reed
140 books443 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 - 29 of 29 reviews
February 5, 2019
Run, all you who are overly-sensitive! Grab your Emotional Support Peacocks, and head for the hills! This book WILL likely offend you, and possibly make you think about things you'd rather not contemplate. Here is the definition of satire:
the use of humor, irony, exaggeration, or ridicule to expose and criticize people's stupidity or vices, particularly in the context of contemporary politics and other topical issues, and this book is most definitely a SATIRE, not a SAFE SPACE.
Now that all the delicate eyeballs are focused on pictures of kittens and rainbows, here's my favorite bit from the book - a book published in 1986, mind you!
"You see white people can't own you anymore, so they try to own you with their eyes. They can't punch you anymore without getting harmed, so they try to punch you with their eyes. They try to control you. Nigger, what are you doing here, we don't want you here, they are saying to you with their eyes. Years ago it was the lynch rope. Now it's the rude stare. They look at you in airports, in restaurants. They stare at you like they're not used to anything."
After reading that, Google white woman calls cops on black . . . and see how many incidents come up. (Remember BBQ Becky and Golfcart Gail? If you're breathing while black, I bet you won't forget 'em.) Oy vey! The more things change, the more they stay the same.
the use of humor, irony, exaggeration, or ridicule to expose and criticize people's stupidity or vices, particularly in the context of contemporary politics and other topical issues, and this book is most definitely a SATIRE, not a SAFE SPACE.
Now that all the delicate eyeballs are focused on pictures of kittens and rainbows, here's my favorite bit from the book - a book published in 1986, mind you!
"You see white people can't own you anymore, so they try to own you with their eyes. They can't punch you anymore without getting harmed, so they try to punch you with their eyes. They try to control you. Nigger, what are you doing here, we don't want you here, they are saying to you with their eyes. Years ago it was the lynch rope. Now it's the rude stare. They look at you in airports, in restaurants. They stare at you like they're not used to anything."
After reading that, Google white woman calls cops on black . . . and see how many incidents come up. (Remember BBQ Becky and Golfcart Gail? If you're breathing while black, I bet you won't forget 'em.) Oy vey! The more things change, the more they stay the same.
August 6, 2020
So - the only reason Reed doesn't get one star is because the quality of the prose here is not the issue, but the nature of his critique is.
The fundamental core of Reed's position in this text, and in numerous interviews, is as follows: Black women should not write about the abuse, rape, violence etc they suffer at the hands of black men because to do so plays into the hands of the white racists. That, because the trope of the animalistic black male is already common currency, women of colour should censor themselves. That issues of race should come before issues of gender. That Alice Walker should never have written The Colour Purple (man does he hate Alice Walker).
When one ties this position in with the other misogynistic statements he has made over the years, his position becomes even more problematic.
That any man of any colour should consider it his prerogative to criticize and attack women for seeking to find ways to voice their suffering makes me too angry to enjoy any other positives one might find in his texts.
In the course of writing this I did a quick internet check to make sure I was not misunderstanding or misremembering (and spoke to some of my academic friends who work in this area) - I came across this from Junot Diaz (and I am aware of the irony in quoting him on this sort of issue):
" This was part of a whole backlash against the growing success and importance of women-of-color writers—but from men of color. Qué irony. The brothers criticizing the sisters for being inauthentic, for being anti-male, for airing the community’s dirty laundry, all from a dreary nationalist point of view. Every time I heard these Chin-Reed-Crouch attacks, even I as a male would feel the weight of oppression on me, on my physical body, increased. And for me, what was fascinating was that the maps these women were creating in their fictions—the social, critical, cognitive maps, these matrixes that they were plotting—were far more dangerous to the structures that had me pinioned than any of the criticisms that men of color were throwing down. What began to be clear to me as I read these women of color—Leslie Marmon Silko, Sandra Cisneros, Anjana Appachana, and throw in Octavia Butler and the great [Cherríe] Moraga of course—was that what these sisters were doing in their art was powerfully important for the community, for subaltern folks, for women writers of color, for male writers of color, for me. They were heeding [Audre] Lorde’s exhortation by forging the tools that could actually take down master’s house. To read these sisters in the 80s as a young college student was not only intoxicating, it was soul-changing. It was metanoia. "
My thoughts exactly.
see also, more recently:
"What I mean is that Reed is stuck on the idea that discussing the inner lives of black women, which far too often includes abuse at the hands of black men, is aimed at destroying the image of black men. It’s the unwillingness of Reed — and others who think this way – to see black men’s complicity in upholding patriarchy that enacts violence on women’s bodies, and which keeps us from addressing domestic violence within our own communities."
http://feministing.com/2014/12/03/ish...
The fundamental core of Reed's position in this text, and in numerous interviews, is as follows: Black women should not write about the abuse, rape, violence etc they suffer at the hands of black men because to do so plays into the hands of the white racists. That, because the trope of the animalistic black male is already common currency, women of colour should censor themselves. That issues of race should come before issues of gender. That Alice Walker should never have written The Colour Purple (man does he hate Alice Walker).
When one ties this position in with the other misogynistic statements he has made over the years, his position becomes even more problematic.
That any man of any colour should consider it his prerogative to criticize and attack women for seeking to find ways to voice their suffering makes me too angry to enjoy any other positives one might find in his texts.
In the course of writing this I did a quick internet check to make sure I was not misunderstanding or misremembering (and spoke to some of my academic friends who work in this area) - I came across this from Junot Diaz (and I am aware of the irony in quoting him on this sort of issue):
" This was part of a whole backlash against the growing success and importance of women-of-color writers—but from men of color. Qué irony. The brothers criticizing the sisters for being inauthentic, for being anti-male, for airing the community’s dirty laundry, all from a dreary nationalist point of view. Every time I heard these Chin-Reed-Crouch attacks, even I as a male would feel the weight of oppression on me, on my physical body, increased. And for me, what was fascinating was that the maps these women were creating in their fictions—the social, critical, cognitive maps, these matrixes that they were plotting—were far more dangerous to the structures that had me pinioned than any of the criticisms that men of color were throwing down. What began to be clear to me as I read these women of color—Leslie Marmon Silko, Sandra Cisneros, Anjana Appachana, and throw in Octavia Butler and the great [Cherríe] Moraga of course—was that what these sisters were doing in their art was powerfully important for the community, for subaltern folks, for women writers of color, for male writers of color, for me. They were heeding [Audre] Lorde’s exhortation by forging the tools that could actually take down master’s house. To read these sisters in the 80s as a young college student was not only intoxicating, it was soul-changing. It was metanoia. "
My thoughts exactly.
see also, more recently:
"What I mean is that Reed is stuck on the idea that discussing the inner lives of black women, which far too often includes abuse at the hands of black men, is aimed at destroying the image of black men. It’s the unwillingness of Reed — and others who think this way – to see black men’s complicity in upholding patriarchy that enacts violence on women’s bodies, and which keeps us from addressing domestic violence within our own communities."
http://feministing.com/2014/12/03/ish...
November 12, 2010
Another gloriously talented writer hanging with the cool Dalkey kids. This is a scathing satire on race, couched in a scathing satire on the NY theatre scene. Ian is a Creole playwright who finds his success by toning down his misogynist content to please the feminist crowd.
In this book, the characters wear their sexist and racist prejudices on their sleeves. Imagine a world where everyone spoke their minds and everything was determined by class, race and gender. Oh no, hang on . . . we're in that world. Oops.
In this book, the characters wear their sexist and racist prejudices on their sleeves. Imagine a world where everyone spoke their minds and everything was determined by class, race and gender. Oh no, hang on . . . we're in that world. Oops.
July 26, 2024
An absolutely fantastic fucking book. I can't praise it enough, my lauds being too square to ever snare this shifting circle of a novel. This is in the van of the great man's Great Works, something that places it in the Greatest Hits of All Time. It would take until Juice!, more than two decades later, for everyone's favorite coyote to reach these heights again. Judgment: read the damn thing.
August 29, 2014
There is this thing I do when I stare at a review, baffled as to what to write, for quite a long time. I start to try to think about why this particular review is so hard to write. Sometimes that helps me through to throw something together. We'll see if it works in this case.
Note: The rest of this review has been withdrawn due to the changes in Goodreads policy and enforcement. You can read why I came to this decision here.
In the meantime, you can read the entire review at Smorgasbook
Note: The rest of this review has been withdrawn due to the changes in Goodreads policy and enforcement. You can read why I came to this decision here.
In the meantime, you can read the entire review at Smorgasbook
October 19, 2016
If you're smart, like me, you realize that many people, especially academics and artists and the worst, the combination of the two, are shysters and fools. Anyone with an -ism or a tagline or who speak-fart in dense and impenetrable jargon-dreck and who align themselves however the wind blows their voice should be immediately suspect.
Ishmael Reed knows this well. This is a book for people who are amused by the senseless and often selfish foibles and nonsense of the modern academe. No one escapes his wrath, not even the ostensible hero. Read through some of the other reviews to see what people who know better than no one think Reed doesn't understand and then you'll see my point.
Not as surreal and playful as "Yellow Black", it's durn funny anyway, with some nice twists.
Ishmael Reed knows this well. This is a book for people who are amused by the senseless and often selfish foibles and nonsense of the modern academe. No one escapes his wrath, not even the ostensible hero. Read through some of the other reviews to see what people who know better than no one think Reed doesn't understand and then you'll see my point.
Not as surreal and playful as "Yellow Black", it's durn funny anyway, with some nice twists.
October 7, 2017
Hilarious novel. Set in the NY theater scene, the characters try to balance between making it and staying truth to themselves as artists/feminists/blacks/Jews/whites. Although it is set in the 80s the racial undertones do not feel dated, it was actually very refreshing to read it in 2017.
September 20, 2014
Hilarious book. It could easily be set on Twitter(Social media) instead of The New York theater scene, and still work perfectly.
March 17, 2025
This might be the most reined-in narrative I’ve read from Ishmael Reed, and it’s some of his best work. I’m usually a huge fan of his cartoonish tone and the outlandish turns his stories take, and while Reckless Eyeballing hits the quota for ridiculousness, it’s relatively small-scale and character-based, which makes it easy to connect with (maybe a good first novel for someone interested in Reed?). Its politics are messy, which is more interesting than if they weren’t, and I was left wondering exactly where the author stands on the issues he’s using as plot devices, but that makes for such a better book than one I agree with unquestioningly, and Reed’s disregard for political correctness and consensus is part of what makes him so great.
This one and Mumbo Jumbo both might hit 5 stars when I reread them. This one especially will hit differently the second time through.
This one and Mumbo Jumbo both might hit 5 stars when I reread them. This one especially will hit differently the second time through.
April 9, 2013
Reckless Eyeballing is told primarily through Ian Ball’s perspective — a Creole playwright who is trying to get his play, also entitled “Reckless Eyeballing,” into a popular theatre. The story is about his encounters with racists and feminists who want to hinder or change his play to suit their needs. Other, more minor characters include Tremonisha Smarts -- a feminist playwright, Jim Minsk -- a Jewish director, and Lawrence O'Reedy -- a racist detective.
While Reed seems to poke equal amounts of fun at everyone and their faults, it seems to me that feminists get the short end of the stick. While there is one redeemable feminist, she is only really that way in the very end of the novel, and basically turns out not to be a feminist at all. In one of the most humorous parts of the novel, the “Flower Phantom,” a man in a beret, trench coat, and mask goes around New York City shaving off prominent feminists hair and leaving them with a Chrysanthemum. The black men of NYC secretly rejoice and praise this man, as the feminists seem to run everything in the city, and have been putting men on the “sex-list” for many years, affecting who is published, praised, paraded around town for their woman-friendly attitudes. Ian Ball hopes to get taken off the sex-list with his play, “Reckless Eyeballing,” which is about a black man who was lynched for looking at a white woman for too long. 20 years after the fact, the woman in question wishes to take the dead man’s skeleton to court in order to sentence him to death. Outrage and hilarity ensue.
This story is definitely easy to read if you take it at face value; it’s short, seems pretty straight forward, and for the most part has simple characters that are easy to identify and label. However, if you treat this as a true Ishmael Reed book, you could read it dozens of times and still come out with something new each time. While I did not love the book, I did enjoy the amazing amounts of layering that Reed accomplishes. By subtly hinting at being a pseudo-fictional tale, there are many popular references to jazz musicians, Disney characters, and an allusion that one of the main characters is basically a stand-in for Alice Walker, and the character’s script-turned-play mirrors Walker’s book-turned-film, The Color Purple.
To truly understand the multilayered intertextual themes, the reader will have to have a basic understanding of a lot of prominent black literature and culture both in and out of the USA. However, before taking the multicultural literature class, I can say that I did not know much about that scene, and I could still enjoy the basic premise and humor of the extremely satirical novel from Ishmael Reed. If you think of the novel as light reading with dark undertones, it makes for a satisfying, humorous, quick read. If you prefer to look deeper into the text, you will also be satisfied — there is layer upon layer of cultural and literary references to feast upon.
While Reed seems to poke equal amounts of fun at everyone and their faults, it seems to me that feminists get the short end of the stick. While there is one redeemable feminist, she is only really that way in the very end of the novel, and basically turns out not to be a feminist at all. In one of the most humorous parts of the novel, the “Flower Phantom,” a man in a beret, trench coat, and mask goes around New York City shaving off prominent feminists hair and leaving them with a Chrysanthemum. The black men of NYC secretly rejoice and praise this man, as the feminists seem to run everything in the city, and have been putting men on the “sex-list” for many years, affecting who is published, praised, paraded around town for their woman-friendly attitudes. Ian Ball hopes to get taken off the sex-list with his play, “Reckless Eyeballing,” which is about a black man who was lynched for looking at a white woman for too long. 20 years after the fact, the woman in question wishes to take the dead man’s skeleton to court in order to sentence him to death. Outrage and hilarity ensue.
This story is definitely easy to read if you take it at face value; it’s short, seems pretty straight forward, and for the most part has simple characters that are easy to identify and label. However, if you treat this as a true Ishmael Reed book, you could read it dozens of times and still come out with something new each time. While I did not love the book, I did enjoy the amazing amounts of layering that Reed accomplishes. By subtly hinting at being a pseudo-fictional tale, there are many popular references to jazz musicians, Disney characters, and an allusion that one of the main characters is basically a stand-in for Alice Walker, and the character’s script-turned-play mirrors Walker’s book-turned-film, The Color Purple.
To truly understand the multilayered intertextual themes, the reader will have to have a basic understanding of a lot of prominent black literature and culture both in and out of the USA. However, before taking the multicultural literature class, I can say that I did not know much about that scene, and I could still enjoy the basic premise and humor of the extremely satirical novel from Ishmael Reed. If you think of the novel as light reading with dark undertones, it makes for a satisfying, humorous, quick read. If you prefer to look deeper into the text, you will also be satisfied — there is layer upon layer of cultural and literary references to feast upon.
December 2, 2022
Two stars for the exact opposite reason I'd given that score to Reed's Mumbo Jumbo.
While Mumbo Jumbo had lots of genius in it, I was unable to find a flow and had no idea what was going on most of the time (in a bad way). Feel free to chalk this up to my failures as a reader. Heck I'd love to have Mumbo Jumbo's finer points explained to me, or even be told off for my dismissal. Reckless Eyeballing not so much. Here the flashes of genius are much more subdued, and everything is overexplained in excess, no subtlety left. It's as if Reed was given feedback to tone things down and he did, but he went way, way too far, to the point that Reed's mystic insights and biting satire were largely absent. Ah well, next time.
While Mumbo Jumbo had lots of genius in it, I was unable to find a flow and had no idea what was going on most of the time (in a bad way). Feel free to chalk this up to my failures as a reader. Heck I'd love to have Mumbo Jumbo's finer points explained to me, or even be told off for my dismissal. Reckless Eyeballing not so much. Here the flashes of genius are much more subdued, and everything is overexplained in excess, no subtlety left. It's as if Reed was given feedback to tone things down and he did, but he went way, way too far, to the point that Reed's mystic insights and biting satire were largely absent. Ah well, next time.
December 15, 2023
Reckless Eyeballing, the title of the work by Black playwright, Ian Ball, whose subject is the lynching of an African-American man for the offense of allegedly looking at a white woman, is in production limbo because the Feminist establishment has placed him on the "sex-list" of notorious misogynists. His producer Jim Minsk is willing to risk the ire of influential Becky French to fight for the integrity of the work and to assert a claim to the promised run at the prestigious Lord Mountbatten Theater. But, Jim disappears after being invited to the mysterious Southern University, Mary Phagan, unaware that he has been invited to view their Anti-Semitic play about Leo Frank, who was lynched in 1913 after being accused of strangling thirteen-year-old Mary Phagan. And Becky would rather produce a Feminist play exonerating Hitler's wife, Eva Braun of any complicity in the politics and atrocities of the Third Reich, because she was a victim of patriarchy. Jake Brashford (a Ralph Ellison sort of analog whose single play A Man Who Was An Enigma is probably an allusion to The Invisible Man), claims that blackness has been appropriated by Jewish writers and that he has to write about Armenians in order to compete in a jaded market and Randy Shanks (who sounds a bit like LeRoi Jones/Amiri Baraka) is reduced to working as the doorman for Tremonisha Smarts (an Alice Walker analog celebrated by white Feminists for her play, Wrong Headed Man (The Color Purple), that depicts Black Men as ape-like brutes and rapists). After Minsk is found dead, Ball is allowed to workshop his play is collaboration with Tremonisha Smarts, but Reckless Eyeballing requires some serious revisions to remove his name from the sex-list. Becky French opposes a monologue by the white woman where it is implied that she and Ham, the victim of a lynch mob led by her husband, are both equally oppressed. Instead, the corpse of Ham must be exhumed and tried for the crime of his male gaze. Meanwhile a masked vigilante is shaving the head of prominent Black Feminist writers as punishment for their collaboration in the oppression of Black men. All identity politics and their inherent contradictions and hypocrisies are incisively parodied by Ishmael Reed. Reed also sheds light upon the literary establishment and NYC theater scene and how these industries mutilate work to suit the commercial viability of a product intended for a white audience who will only accept a bland or sensationalized multicultural narrative that does not threaten or directly criticize their biases.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
March 9, 2018
I remember really liking Mumbo Jumbo when I read it some years back, but this satire was not as successful. Reed is trying to describe the complex hierarchies of hypocrisy in our culture when it comes to race and gender through the story of black playwright Ian Ball, and although he's trying to be scathingly honest, it's so wrong-headed it comes across as phony. For a novel about the theater, this is a surprisingly joyless exercise where the characters are caricatures who take turns reciting stale rhetoric rather than engaging in interesting dialogue.
As deliberately offensive as most of this is, the worst thing about it is that it isn't funny.
As deliberately offensive as most of this is, the worst thing about it is that it isn't funny.
February 3, 2021
Not necessarily the laugh out loud piece I expected it to be. However, it is thought provoking, turning every -ism over on its head and highlighting the flaws and hypocrisies of it all, taking no prisoners. Be warned not for the lighthearted or easily offended.
This book is filled with many twists, the most surprising was the final one. Not even the supposed hero of the book escaped flaw. He was just as suspect as the rest of them.
Ps was there a jeffery epstein appearance in this book. It seemed like him. Confirm anyone..
This book is filled with many twists, the most surprising was the final one. Not even the supposed hero of the book escaped flaw. He was just as suspect as the rest of them.
Ps was there a jeffery epstein appearance in this book. It seemed like him. Confirm anyone..
March 22, 2010
I learned about Ishmael Reed from the Garrison Keillor daily literary review. He loves him. AND Ishmael Reed is a wonderful writer, smart and wicked and tedruthful and often hard to follow but I am glad I found him. How about a Black man in Mississippi being arrest for "reckless eyeballing" of a white woman. Yeah, well Ishmael is heavy into irony and I am glad I found him.
November 28, 2014
I read this a long time ago. I was impressed with Reed's control of his anger. He has a righteous voice. This novel is based on the killing of a young Afro-American who was supposed to have looked at a white woman back in the day when that would lead to a lynching. I can't remember much beyond that.
Read
June 30, 2021For me, the most accessible of all of Reed's novels. I love his poetry.
December 15, 2013
Shines a light, makes his points, and finds time to include some marvellous plotting and funny bits, too.
April 9, 2016
Satirical view of the art/theater/lit scene in NYC - be warned! It ain't delicate, and takes no prisoners.
August 25, 2025
This one does a lot. It sure made me think a lot. It’s mostly an exploration of the dynamics between marginalized groups, specifically women, Black men and Jews. The theatre is the vehicle, and our main character— a playwright — struggles to appease the three groups. There’s also a masked villain shaving the heads of feminists. And the main character’s mom is a little bit clairvoyant. Put it all together and you have a complex book that is hard to put down. It’s also the earliest book (1985) I’ve read about anti-Black racism in the entertainment industry (somehow I keep stumbling upon books like this after reading Erasure). However, I can’t tell how much of this is satire and how much is misogyny.
April 22, 2023
Nasty, slick, and mean, Ishmael Reed’s novel Reckless Eyeballing is a trip through the theatre and literary scene of the 80s. Feminists swing to the far right, old Irish cops reach for the guns, and someone is going around town shaving the heads of prominent black women.
In a novel that’s relatively short, Reed packs a lot of punches in. He satirizes nearly everyone, making a world that’s out of control where everyone hates everyone but few speak out openly for fear of reprisal. It’s funny and mostly is of a piece with similarly themed novels of his like Juice, but the last little bit drags down as the protagonist returns home.
In a novel that’s relatively short, Reed packs a lot of punches in. He satirizes nearly everyone, making a world that’s out of control where everyone hates everyone but few speak out openly for fear of reprisal. It’s funny and mostly is of a piece with similarly themed novels of his like Juice, but the last little bit drags down as the protagonist returns home.
May 31, 2022
I think this book makes two demands on artists: it demands a commitment to authenticity and the rejection of essentialism. In typical Reed style, the book is fast paced and frantic. However, the essential takeaways are consistent throughout the book. Black people, black men and black women are not playthings.
September 20, 2025
Good and easy read. Incredibly offensive but the themes explored definitely hold my interest- it felt as though no character was right or commendable but each incredibly human. Lots of twist and real easy to sink into- don’t get to caught up in the fictional but aggressively passionate prejudice statements made and you’ll have a great time
March 9, 2019
I read it because it was touted as hilarious satire. And it is satiric, but I found its non-pc diatribes weren't humorous at all. I'd say they are more unimaginative and perhaps pointless. One of the rare books that I wish I'd passed up.
September 5, 2021
A decent send-up of the theatre scene. There are some bold barbs. And we do have the comfort of Reed's "take no prisoners" approach. But I felt the thrust of this book was less focused than Reed's better efforts (MUMBO JUMBO, JUICE, et al.).
December 2, 2018
sheesh. Reed was not out to make any friends with this one
August 31, 2021
Read more Reed!
October 18, 2021
Was riding my Ishmael Reed high, so I had to read another of his books. This one is a little confusing. Politics don't make sense, the action is strange. Not really my cup of tea.
Displaying 1 - 29 of 29 reviews