Ishmael Reed Books In Order

Novels

  1. The Freelance Pallbearers (1967)
  2. Yellow Back Radio Broke-Down (1969)
  3. Mumbo Jumbo (1972)
  4. The Last Days of Louisiana Red (1974)
  5. A Secretary to the Spirits (1978)
  6. The Terrible Twos (1982)
  7. Reckless Eyeballing (1986)
  8. Flight to Canada (1989)
  9. The Terrible Threes (1989)
  10. Japanese by Spring (1993)
  11. Juice! (2011)
  12. Conjugating Hindi (2018)
  13. The Terrible Fours (2021)

Collections

  1. The Reed Reader (2000)

Chapbooks

  1. Cab Calloway Stands in for the Moon (1986)

Plays

  1. The Plays (2009)
  2. Haunting Of Lin-Manuel Miranda (2020)
  3. Life Among the Aryans (2021)

Anthologies edited

  1. Calafia, the California Poetry (1979)
  2. Quilt One (1981)
  3. Quilt Three (1982)
  4. Quilt 4 (1984)
  5. Quilt, No. 5 (1987)
  6. Hispanic-American Literature (1995)
  7. African-American Literature (1995)
  8. Asian American Literature (1995)
  9. From Totems to Hip Hop (2002)

Non fiction

Novels Book Covers

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Ishmael Reed Books Overview

The Freelance Pallbearers

Ishmael Reed’s electrifying first novel zooms readers off to a land they have never heard of, a crazy, ominous kingdom called HARRY SAM a never never land so weirdly out of whack that only reality itself could be stranger. Venturing into this risky realm of a thousand contradictions is the quixotic Bukka Doopeyduk, a crusading, liberal fellow who is eager if not always ready to face the dangers of life. And dangers abound. Jousting and colliding with a macabre carousel of cops and beatniks, Elks and Black Muslims, he suffers a series of cockeyed misfortunes maddening, saddening, and wildly uproarious. The Free Lance Pallbearers fires a volley of savage torpedoes at the world’s absurdities. Its rollicking language and blasphemous humor hide a merciless message.

Yellow Back Radio Broke-Down

‘Folks. This here is the story of the Loop Garoo Kid. A cowboy so bad he made a working posse of spells phone in sick. A bullwhacker so unfeeling he left the print of winged mice on hides of crawling women. A desperado so onery he made the Pope cry and the most powerful of cattlemen shed his head to the Executioner’s swine.’ And so begins the HooDoo Western by Ishmael Reed, author of MUMBO JUMBO and one of America’s most innovative and celebrated writers. Reed demolishes white American history and folklore as well as Christian myth in this masterful satire of contemporary American life. In addition to the black, satanic Loop Garoo Kid, YELLOW BACK RADIO BROKE DOWN features Drag Gibson a rich, slovenly cattleman, Mustache Sal his nymphomaniac mail order bride, Thomas Jefferson and many others in a hilarious parody of the old Western.

Mumbo Jumbo

The Classic Freewheeling Look at Race Relations Through the Ages Mumbo Jumbo is Ishmael Reed’s brilliantly satiric deconstruction of Western civilization, a racy and uproarious commentary on our society. In it, Reed, one of our preeminent African American authors, mixes portraits of historical figures and fictional characters with sound bites on subjects ranging from ragtime to Greek philosophy. Cited by literary critic Harold Bloom as one of the five hundred most significant books in the Western canon, Mumbo Jumbo is a trenchant and often biting look at black white relations throughout history, from a keen observer of our culture.

The Last Days of Louisiana Red

The Last Days of Louisiana Red blends paradox, hyperbole, understatement and signifyin’ so expertly you can almost hear a droll black voice telling the tales as you read it.’ The New Republic When Papa LaBas private eye, noonday HooDoo, and hero of Reed’s Mumbo Jumbo comes to Berkeley, California, to investigate the mysterious death of Ed Yellings, owner of the Solid Gumbo Works, he finds himself fighting the rising tide of violence propagated by Louisiana Red and those militant opportunists, the Moochers. A HooDoo detective story and a comprehensive satire on the explosive politics of the ’60s, The Last Days of Louisiana Red exposes the hypocrisy of contemporary American culture and race politics.

The Terrible Twos

The Terrible Twos is a wickedly funny, sharp edged fictional assault on all those sulky, spoiled naysayers needing instant gratification Americans. Ishmael Reed’s sixth novel depicts a zany, bizarre, and all too believable future where mankind’s fate depends upon a jolly old gent named St. Nicholas and a Risto rasta dwarf named Black Peter, who together wreak mischievous havoc on Wall Street and in the Oval Office. This offbeat, on target social critique makes marvelous fun of everything that is American, from commercialism to Congress, Santa Claus to religious cults.

Reckless Eyeballing

It’s the 1980s and the politics of the New York theater scene have taken yet another turn. Masochism is out and feminism is in, Jews are out and Germans are in, race is out and gender is in, and everyone’s fighting and rewriting for a piece of the pie. Jewish director Jim Minsk disappears during a trip to the South. Black playwright Ian Ball writes the all female play Reckless Eyeballing in hopes of getting off the ‘sex list.’ Preeminent playwright Jack Brashford, claiming the Jews stole all his black material, decides to write about Armenians. In the background, an unknown assailant dubbed the ‘Flower Phantom’ runs loose through the city shaving heads of prominent black feminists to the secret delight of black men. In this hilarious, devastating, but also deeply sympathetic novel, Ishmael Reed turns characters on the backs, sides, tops and bottoms to expose the multiple hypocrisies at the heart of American culture.

Flight to Canada

Brilliantly portrayed by a novelist with ‘a talent for hyperbole and downright yarning unequaled since Mark Twin’, SATURDAY REVIEW, this slave’s-eye view of the Civil War exposes America’s racial foibles of the past and present with uninhibited humor and panache. ‘A book that reinvents the particulars of slavery in America with comic rage’.–THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW.

The Terrible Threes

This adventure into the world of offbeat humor and on target social criticism is a vision of America in the not too distant future, a portrait of a fairy tale gone awry. In The Terrible Threes, Ishmael Reed proves that he is one of the most innovative voices in contemporary literature. This adventure into the world of offbeat humor and on target social criticism is a vision of America in the not too distant future, a portrait of a fairy tale gone awry. This novel begins where The Terrible Twos left off, in the late 1990s, three years after President and former fashion model Dean Clift was laughed out of office, with the nation in chaos and the White House implicated in a covert operation to rid America of surplus people and the Third World of its nuclear weapons. A blend of science fiction, folklore, history, fantasy, social satire, and all out surrealist comedy, The Terrible Threes bears Reed’s distinctive voice and message. At once a threat, a promise, a prediction, and the awful truth about the land of the free and the home of the brave, the tale is wholly unforgettable. Once you’ve seen the world through Reed’s eyes, you might never see it the same way again.

Japanese by Spring

Chappie: Puttbutt, an African American professor at the overwhelmingly white Jack London University, suddenly finds himself the academic dean of the school and, drunk with power, sets out to even old scores.

The Reed Reader

A generous selection from the playful, irreverent, and controversial work of Ishmael Reed, one of the greatest African American writers. Ishmael Reed has been described as cavorting ‘like a black bull in the china shop of Western culture,’ and The Reed Reader is a collection of the sharp, jagged results of his rampage. In it, one of the most renowned African American writers offers a generous sampling of the brilliant and witty satire, the politically charged, wildly imaginative storytelling, and the caustic cultural criticism that have become his trademarks. In these excerpts from his celebrated novels, poems, plays, and essays, Reed displays an ironic wit, a cold, keen eye for economic exploitation, a hilarious sense of the absurd, and a slender but persistent optimism for the determined souls who transcend their environment and penetrate illusions by daring acts of will. The Reed Reader is the cumulative representation of an astonishing career, a powerful testament to Reed’s many and enormous literary gifts.

The Plays

The award winning plays of one of the most celebrated and innovative American writers of our time. Ishmael Reed’s career as one of our great playwrights has long been eclipsed by his other work. Here published for the first time, Reed s plays follow the ancient tradition of using the theater as a forum in which the official versions of our history can be critiqued. Dealing with subjects that mainstream theatergoers might find disturbing homelessness, the arbitrary entrapment of a black politician, the excesses of the radical feminist movement, the use of black conservatives to promote right wing agendas, the exploitation of blacks and Africans as unsuspecting guinea pigs by the pharmaceutical industry, and the hypocrisy of the Christian church Reed s plays are a pungent antidote to the watered down world of contemporary pop culture, where, Reed argues, minority voices remain as marginalized and stigmatized as they were a hundred years ago.

Hispanic-American Literature

This is one of a series of brief anthologies designed for ethnic, multicultural and American literature courses. The series aims to introduce undergraduates to the rich but often neglected literary contributions of established and newer ethnic writers to American literature. Each text is organized chronlogically by genre and represents a wide range of literature. An introduction provides an historical overview and a celebration of the diversity within each ethnic group. It also addresses the general literary concerns students are likely to encounter in their readings. A seperate thematic table of contents provides the tutor with more flexibility in the classroom. All four anthologies include three bibliographies which suggest novels for further reading; aid students in their research and recommend films that would enhance the studies. Ishmael Reed, the general editor, is founder of the American Book Awards.

African-American Literature

These brief anthologies of ethnic American literature are ideal for ethnic, multicultural and American literature courses. They are designed to introduce undergraduates to the rich but often neglected literary contributions of established and newer ethnic writers to American literature. Each text is organized chronologically by genre and represent a wide range of literature. An introduction provides an historical overview and a celebration of the diversity within each ethnic group. It also addresses the general literary concerns students are likely to encounter in their readings. A seperate thematic table of contents provides the instructor with more flexibility in the classroom.

Asian American Literature

These brief anthologies of ethnic American literature are ideal for ethnic, multicultural and American literature courses. They are designed to introduce undergraduates to the rich but often neglected literary contributions of established and newer ethnic writers to American literature. Each text is organized chronologically by genre and represent a wide range of literature. An introduction provides an historical overview and a celebration of the diversity within each ethnic group. It also addresses the general literary concerns students are likely to encounter in their readings. A seperate thematic table of contents provides the instructor with more flexibility in the classroom.

From Totems to Hip Hop

Celebrated novelist, poet, and MacArthur fellow Ishmael Reed pushes the boundaries once again in the publication of From Totems to Hip Hop a truly all inclusive multicultural anthology a literary event which will finally even the playing field. This important collection synthesizes and presents broad swaths of work from poets of all races and backgrounds, as only Reed can, ranging from Gertrude Stein to Ai, from Bessie Smith to Askia Toure, from W. C. Handy to the little known poetry of Ernest Hemingway. Through his unique position in American letters, as writer, teacher, and even publisher, Reed has an unparalleled working knowledge of many of the more marginalized voices in American poetry. This collection will reflect that unique access by including acknowledged masters as well as lesser known talents in greater variety than any previous anthology. From Totems to Hip Hop will cover American poetry from its pre Columbian origins to the hip hop lyricists of today and, with the guidance of Reed’s thoughtful and provocative introduction and headnotes, trace the remarkably rich cross pollination which has continually occurred across racial and cultural lines.

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