The Free-Lance Pallbearers
Ishmael Reed
Columbia University Press
<p>Ishmael Reed's electrifying first novel zooms readers off to the crazy, ominous kingdom of HARRY SAM&#8212;a miserable and dangerous place ruled for thirty years by Harry Sam, a former used car salesman who wields his power from his bathroom throne. In a land of a thousand contradictions peopled by cops and beatniks, black nationalists and white liberals, the crusading Bukka Doopeyduk leads a rebellion against the corrupt Sam in a wildly uproarious and scathing satire, earning the author the right to be dubbed "the brightest contributor to American satire since Mark Twain" (<I>The Nation</I>).</p>