The Time of Our Singing

by Richard Powers

Category: African Americans.

ISBN: 9780099453833

Publication Year: 2004

Price: $27.32

Stock: 38 available

Average Rating: Not rated yet

Log in to rate this book.

Description: Jonah, Joseph and Ruth are the children of mixed-race parents determined to protect them from the grinding effects of race. Hothouse children, they are all musically talented, but they cannot be protected from the world for long. Jonah becomes a successful young tenor, but the world of opera can only accept him as a 'brilliant Negro singer'; Joseph, our narrator, becomes a pianist and devotes his talents to the service of his brother's; Ruth turns her back on classical music ('white music') and disappears, on the run with her black husband under suspicion of being a Black Panther. Powers brilliantly and devastatingly delineates the tragedy of race in America, as it unfolds from the Civil Rights movement to Rodney King and Louis Farrakhan, through the lives and choices of one family, caught on the cusp of identities.

Added on: April 17, 2025

Add to Cart Back to Books