&;Reading Wright is a steep, stinging pleasure.&;&;Dwight Garner, New York Times
In this incisive, satirical collection of three classic American novels by Charles Wright&;hailed by the New York Times as &;malevolent, bitter, glittering&;&;a young, black intellectual from the South struggles to make it in New York City. This special compilation includes a foreword by acclaimed poet and novelist Ishmael Reed, who calls Wright, &;Richard Pryor on paper.&;
As fresh and poignant as when originally published in the sixties and seventies, The Messenger, The Wig, and Absolutely Nothing to get Alarmed About form Charles Wright&;s remarkable New York City trilogy. By turns brutally funny and starkly real, these three autobiographical novels create a memorable portrait of a young, working-class, black intellectual&;a man caught between the bohemian elite of Greenwich Village and the dregs of male prostitution and drug abuse.
Wright&;s fiction is searingly original in bringing to life a special time, a special place, and the remarkable story of a man living in two worlds. This updated edition shines a spotlight once again on this important writer&;a writer whose work is so crucial to our times.