Soul City

August 9, 2004
In a swamp of political mudslinging tomes, this charming and quirky fairy tale for grownups comes as a restful change. Stem-cell clashes? Foreign policy? Forget it. The mayoral race in Soul City hinges on one issue and one issue only: which candidate will make the best DJ, pumping the hippest music into the speakers that hang from every lamppost in the city. The citizens of this grooving utopia, which boasts "more mojo than any city in the world," are entirely separated from the rest of America, and they like it that way; it leaves them free to devour Granmama's biscuits by the bushel, drive around in cars that play only the driver's favorite singer, and attend St. Pimp's House of Baptist Rapture. When Cadillac Jackson, a journalist from Chocolate City
magazine, arrives to write an article about the election, he promptly falls in love with the seductive Mahogany Sunflower, but even more so with the city itself—the only place left in America where black really is beautiful. Imaginative, buoyant and slyly funny, this satire by magazine writer Touré (The Portable Promised Land
) is a delight to read and a pleasure to hum along to. Agent, Sarah Lazin.
5-city author tour.