Come home Charley Patton

February 1, 2013
An African American dancer, choreographer, writer, and visual artist, Lemon undertakes quests, then transforms documentation of his journeys into performance pieces and striking travelogues that combine word and image. This is the final volume in a trilogy, following Geography (2000), which covers his sojourn in West Africa, and Tree (2004), an account of his explorations in Asia. Come Home Charley Patton is an American story. Lemon braids together family history and autobiography with eerie, funny, and heart-wrenching on-the-road encounters as he and his daughter reenact the 1961 Freedom Bus Ride. Lemon transcribes conversations with people they meet and describes with fine-tuned insights the poignant and tragic civil rights sites they visit. He is also seeking traces of obscure blues musicians, especially the elusive Charley Patton, and not only does he intently look and listen, he also dances spontaneously in living rooms and open spaces. Motion is intrinsic to Lemon's understanding of the world, and this graceful, meditative, and unveiling odyssey, told in dancing language and kinetic drawings and photographs, reframes and recharges still hidden, still painful stories of the perplexities of race and freedom.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2013, American Library Association.)