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“With A Visitation of Spirits, Randall Kenan continues James Baldwin’s legendary tradition of ‘telling it on the mountain.’”—San Francisco Chronicle
When A Visitation of Spirits was published, Randall Kenan (1963-2020) was instantly recognized as a writer of significance, and one who brought into literary fiction the southern Black, gay experience, one of the first such writers to achieve mainstream success. His groundbreaking first novel, A Visitation of Spirits, is the powerful story of Horace Cross, a popular and high-achieving sixteen-year-old boy, who wrestles with the guilt of discovering who he is, a young man attracted to other men and yearning to escape the narrow confines of the small town of Tims Creek, North Carolina, where he grew up. Raised on stories of prophets, revelations, and dreams, his internal struggles take shape in his mind as demons and angels battling for his soul, culminating in one night of horrible and tragic transformation. A Visitation of Spirits established Randall Kenan as a literary master, and his influence continues to be felt.
Now in Grove paperback and with an introduction by Tarell Alvin McCraney, Oscar-winning writer of Moonlight, A Visitation of Spirits is a classic novel of growing up from a literary giant.
Praise for Randall Kenan
"Randall Kenan is an American master." —Tayari Jones, author of An American Marriage
"A genius, our Black Marquez." —Terry McMillan
“A Visitation of Spirits marks the debut of a very gifted writer. Randall Kenan speaks eloquently and with a great deal of courage about personal and communal strife with the Black community.”—Gloria Naylor
“A very daring first novel . . . innovative . . . Randall Kenan has courage and talent to spare.”—Chicago Tribune
"Remarkable for its very ambiguities, this stylistically daring novel steers wide of the literature of oppression and uplift, and shares even less with tales of coming-out, in short, an original.”—Kirkus Reviews
“Oh, the magic and music Randall Kenan brings to the page.”—Jill McCorkle, author of Life After Life
“A gifted, confident writer.”—The Raleigh News and Observer
“Kenan’s grasp of his lightly fictionalized home’s history, geography, and culture was as keen as Faulkner’s.”—Slate
“One of America’s finest writers.”—Southern Review of Books
Randall Kenan (1963-2020) was the former chancellor of the Fellowship of Southern Writers and a professor of English and comparative literature at the University of North Carolina — Chapel Hill. He lived in Hillsborough, North Carolina.