Status Updates From Such Sweet Thunder: A Novel...

A yellowed manuscript almost 20 years after the author's death. Another 20 years before that trying to get it published. Almost 40 years in the wilderness. Finally this book comes out. It's a little raw. But it aims to find beauty in among the poverty and lack of opportunity in 1920s Chicago for a black family. The language is rich, the observations of pre-school Amerigo precocious. The family love each other.

Here's the thing, this book came into the world unexpectedly, the author forgotten for decades. Long dead, his former girlfriend in Bern had the manuscript. She was contacted by someone who read Carter's first book. She sent him the manuscript. It's raw, sometimes overwritten in its descriptions, yet the observations of the child are memorable and sometimes beautiful. The setting is bleak, but there's beauty.