Juice!

February 15, 2011

This latest novel from the prolific Reed, founder of the Before Columbus Foundation, features cartoonist Paul Blessings, who goes by the pen name Bear. But the book's real subject is the O.J. Simpson murder case, with which Bear is obsessed. The main outlet for Bear's cartoons has been a New York TV station formerly owned by PBS that has been bought up and is going commercial with a vengeance. Bear is in trouble with the station higher-ups because of his steadfast defense of O.J. and refusal to work on a different topic. Moving through the years of the criminal trial, the novel dispenses with many of the mechanisms of standard fiction and instead offers a series of rants, dialogs real and imagined, accidental confrontations, and made-up situations, all tossed off in a disrespectful, grumpy, and hilarious style. Reed is not interested in rearguing the case, but he does highlight many of its inconsistencies. VERDICT Humorous and infectious, this is one person's take on an incident that was smothered by the media yet remains unclear. Recommended for anyone interested in a report from the frontlines of the battle that is life for an aging black man in that strange land, early 21st-century America.--Jim Coan, SUNY Coll. at Oneonta Lib.

Copyright 2011 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

February 15, 2011
Paul Blessings, aka Bear, is getting on in years, a process made worse by diabetes. He is still on the job as a television political cartoonist, although he was pressured into retiring his longtime radical cartoon, Attitude the Badger, and introducing the slightly less abrasive character Koots Badger. Astute and cantankerous, he is epically obsessed with O. J. (The Juice) Simpson and the debacle of his trials, a fixation that has alienated his family and friends and endangered his job. Reed, a multitalented satirist, provocateur, and author of more than two dozen books about African American life and culture, is positively gleeful here as his irresistible trickster alter ego breaks down the toxic implications of the Simpson case and rails against American racism, hypocrisy, greed, and corruption. Punctuated by incidents hilarious, barbed, dramatic, and sweet, Bears far-roaming, deep-digging, jazzy rant allows Reed to slyly map the ripple effects of the 1990s, track how and why O. J. became an icon of social ills, protest the evisceration of journalism, and celebrate the tenacity and mettle of artists of conscience and freedom.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2011, American Library Association.)