Mojo Hand: An Orphic Tale

By J.J. Phillips

Book Overview

Presents the tragic story of a woman's involvement with the elderly blues singer, Blacksnake Brown This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0933944128
• ISBN13: 9780933944121
• Release Date: January 1985
• Publisher: City Miner Books
• Length: 180 Pages
• Weight: 0.62 lbs.

Customer Reviews

Recently discovered

This is an excellent tale. I am so excited although I have not read the whole book just yet. I should have it completed by Next week. I really don't want to finish because its that good.

An excellent blues work in literature!

Since the Harlem Renaissnace Movement, there has been an emergence of alternative literary portrayals of the black feminine experience and J.J. Phillips explores this in her Orhpic Tale. It is the story of the young, independent Eunice who leaves a privledged life in San Francisco to find herself and the blues she believes is a part of her. She finds what she seeks in the diamond toothed aging bluesman Blacksnake and it is quickly apparent that as she enters his world, her life will be forever changed. Phillip's writes, "She had never fought for existence; now she would have to." Phillip's shows a woman's experience with the blues through literature, much in the same manner it might be played out in a blueswoman's song. As content, the novel insightfully explores and gives reference to vodoo, the Orpheus tale of Greek mythology, as well as gender issues of female independence and male dominance. When Eunice arrives in Raleigh, North Carolina she is an independent and courageous woman who speaks her mind and makes choices about her own sexuality. However, she is faced with a dichotomy of her independence opposed against a patriarchal order of male power and control. It is Eunice's transformation, combined with the complexity of her evolving relationship with Blacksnake that gives this novel its intrigue.

Succeeds wonderfully as a literary equivalent of the blues

"The power of the blues dominates this tale where voodoo merges with a version of the age-old myth of Orpheus, and where two lovers -- a desperate, light-skinned young black woman who appears to be white and an aging black bluesman battle their fated attraction." David Henderson - Berkeley Monthly"A work of genius written by a girl of twenty --too rich a mix for the time in which it appeared, with its superb ear of Black street talk, and insider's knowledge of the blues. Back in print after two decades of neglect, this novel is destined to become a classic." Carolyn Kizer --Writer's Choice