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Summary: This Black Rambo makes Shaft look like Pee-Wee Herman.
Review: A good action adventure quasi-historical novel. This will be a feel good story for those people with a deep resentment towards racist caucasians.
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Summary: An overly long novel that loses its way.
Review: The first couple of chapters are very well done and hook the reader into wanting more. But it doesn't take long for this rambling novel to lose its way. There are parts of the book that are very good and indicate that the author could be a chip off the old block; however, its under current theme is racist and it ends up being an in your face book. Yes, we need more good black authors and yes the theme of race needs to be told, but in your face doesn't work. This would have been a much better novel if about 100-200 pages had been edited out. The story line is good but the focus doesn't hold.
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Summary: TOO FAR FETCHED AND CONVOLUTED
Review: The book was so convoluted with mass killings and interwoven stories...a little hard to believe. It was like reading a comic book. Hero jumps from one big mess to another and always comes out victorious. And as far as researching the time of the story...there were no interstate highways and most of the guns mentioned weren't even made back then. Please....I really expected a better story as everyone regaled this as a best seller.
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Summary: I felt my father reading over my shoulder!
Review: King Tremain epitomizes much of the history I learned from my father over many meals and through our father, daughter talks. So many of the quips and visualizations were so clear, so true, they brought to mind specific stories from my childhood. I felt as if this story was written for him to enjoy, despite his death in 1987. Somehow, I know he read every word with me. Happily, I also felt a continuation of the saga is in the works. I certainly hope I'm right. What an amazing first fiction novel.Maya must be saying, "Son, you done good!" in her own way.
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Summary: It is the best novel I have read in a long time.
Review: It is a good read. If you want something corrected in life, you may have to stand on the scratch line yourself someday. A good definition of the scratch line is told in this book. It is about courage and one's willingness to put themselves at risk for what they believe in. I would give it five stars, but I'm trying to leave room for Mr. Johnson's second novel. It is really a great book in my opinion.
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Summary: A refreshing epic tale.
Review: The story "hero" King is someone we wish we were or wish we knew. His approach of defending his honor may not suit most, but he does have honor and a sense of family lost to most of us. He is unforgiving but charitable and loyal. He breathes energy into the other characters in the story and gives them life. A treat to read and definitely big screen material.
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Summary: An Excellent Debut by the Rookie, Guy Johnson
Review: While flipping the pages of this novel I felt a searing, burning connection; a bond with the pages of this novel most readers feel after a paper cut. I felt a hunger for more words to read during and after finishing this novel. I had a jones for more information about King Tremain. I needed a fix; I had to learn more about that period and especially about African Americans during that period. I loved this book because I related to it. This story had to be told. Guy Johnson did an excellent job of telling it to us and I for one am grateful. I am being very sincere when I relay that this book has affected my thoughts, attitudes, and life. My only fault with this incredible body of work is that Guy used 1990's slang during a few passages in the latter part of the novel. All in all, this novel should become either a made for TV movie or a full-length feature film. To tell the truth; I haven't read a book since because almost certainly it would be a let down.
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Summary: This isn't just Black Fiction, it's American Fiction!
Review: Guy Johnson's antihero protagonist, King Tremain, seems too violent, to brilliant, too tender, and too lucky to be real. Yet he embodies the strength and power of the Afrcian race as that race has made it to the shores of America to survive the middle passage, slavery, oppression, Jim Crow and flat-out often inexplicable racism that captivates this country's social dialogue from beginning to end right up until today. Guy Johnson's blistering portrayal captures a period in history that seems to have ignored black development after reconstruction. Yet the feel of the times and the reality of African-Americans from just before the first World War until the end of the Second is richly detailed and meticulously researched and rendered in a heretofore unexplored manner. For me in reading the book it was impossible not to think of great black athletes of the present like Michael Jordan and Terrell Davis, and perhaps more than anyone Jackie Robinson. the combination of extraordinary strength, athletic skill, and courage combined with a brilliance and perspicacity are all part of "King's" makeup. His ruthlessness is of gargantuan proportions, but it's all born from a single germ, the germ of survival. This book isn't just by, for and about African-Americans. It's abouit all of us, all of our dreams, but cast in apeculiarly unexplored aspect of our history. The violence is there, yes, but poetically rendered and exquisitely drawn into the demanding nature of the times. It is a uniquely American quest for freedom, full of lust, desire, and struggle. Read it!
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Summary: Captivating, engrossing and interesting.
Review: I was both curious,(I was sure that the book had been published ONLY because the author was Maya Angelou's son)and, I was desperate for a GOOD book to read, when I happened upon "Standing at the Scratch Line" by Guy Johnson. It is December, and I was told not to expect it until January. I'd heard from a from a friend, who'd read an advance copy that it was good. What an understatement! The book is great! History and social studies teachers, take heed.This book should be used as a way to teach a segment of America's history, in a way that would hold students' attention. As it did mine. From line one, the story grabs you, and doesn't let go until the end. Congratulations to Mr. Johnson for conjuring up such a compelling story and for not writing just another "so-so," "ho-hum," "just change the name and location type of book,that too many publishers think all Black people want to read, and to Random House for recognizing quality and talent, and publishing it. I am not related to Guy Johnson, nor affiliated with Random House or its employees in any way. I am a vociferous reader who is always in search of a book that is WELL WRITTEN. "Standing at the Scratch Line" is it. Too often, publishers, anxious to publish books written by Black authors, accept sacrifice quality. Again, congratulations to the editors at Random House for recognizing a book that needed to be published.
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Summary: An exciting new author with a great talent
Review: LeRoi Tremain's family ask him to leave after he was involved in the latest incident with their long time rivals tha DuMont's. The law knew he was involved and they were closing in on the family. The only loyality LeRoi had ever know was his famiy but they had turned against him, he swore that he would be the head of his own family, it would be a new branch of the Tremains and it would dominate all others. This first things he saw upon leaving home was a detachment of colored soliders and he made the decision to join the army. He learned that things were no better for the colored man in the army, than it was in civilian life. The army trained him to fight and kill efficiently and to his surprise he discovered that he liked it. King now had a purpose, he was trained to seek out and kill the enemy, this ishowhe earned his nickname, King Tremain, the king of death. After the war King returned with the 369th Infantry Colored Regiment battered and bruised but triumphant, to setle in Harlem. King invested in a Jazz club and when the mob steps in and tries to take a piece of the action, King declares war. Few people knew of King's involvment in the early in the early Mafioso wars. King also had a relationship with Mamie during his years in NewYork but, both of them knew it was not a long term relationship., so when things got to hot for him in New York leaving was not a problem. King moves to New Orleans and soon gains the reputation of a gambler and a very good one. He quickly becomes a thorn in the side of the Ku Klux Klan when he uses he skills as a killer when he becomes a one man army to defend the rights and lives of the colored people. After a long courtship Serena and King were married in Oct. of 11920. They were on thier way to San Francisco and decided to settle in a small Okla. town of Brodie Wells. They chose Brodie Wells because they wanted to be somewhere colored folks were in charge in a town that had electricity. Serena sets up her own dress shop and King continues his war against those who treat colored folks unfaily or just plain wrong. While King was away on one of his many trips he recieves a letter fromMamie. She tells him that he has a son, she knew she was pregnant when he left but she had not told him because she did not want him to stay just because of the child. Serena opens the letter and decides not to tell king. King is captured by one of his many enemiesand Serena sets out to rescue him. In order to do this she takes a job in the hotel where he is being held. Serena must submit to a white man in order to get close to her husband, she never tells King this. When Serena discovers that she is pregnant ( knowing it is a white mans) she tries to abort the child. When Serena almost dies King vows to raise the child as his and never tell him that he is not the true father of the boy, LaValle. Serena and King have a second son, Jacques. Because of her guilt over trying to abort LaValle, she babies him they develop a very special bond that does not include Jacques.Because of the circumstances of her sons birh Serena feels he will always have problems in Brodie wells and she is afraid that Mamie will try and contact King she wants to mov. Before she has a chance to convince Kings he makes the suggestion hiself. they decide to continue on to San Francisco. Just before they leave King recievs a letter telling hime that Mamie is dead and his son has been placed in an orphanage in an unknown location. King is furious with Serena and it puts a large wedge between them, that can never be healed. Serena remembers that the first letter mentioned an orphanage in Texas so she checks and yes Kings son is there but she does not tell him. In order to to ease her guilty feelings for leaving the child there she gives them a large donations and continues them over the years. As the years pass King and Serena live seperate lives, she with her charity work and he his crusade for his people. They do not see eye to eye about raising thier children, King finds a way to secure his sons futrure and that of his grandsons. This is only the very highlights of this book. There is so much action and so many things going on it is impossible to put it into a review. This is one action packed book by a new author that I feel has a great future in the publishing industry.
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