The new edition of The Tragic Black Buck: Racial Masquerading in the American Literary Imagination offers a fresh perspective on this trail blazing scholarship, and the singular importance of F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby as a challenge to the racial hegemony of biological white supremacy. Fitzgerald convincinglyand boldly shows how racial passing by light-skinned Black individuals becomes the most fascinating literary trope associated with democracy and the enduring desire for the American Dream.
"Carlyle Van Thompson's study of black maleness as forms of mask and masquerade is brilliantly driving and fresh in its exploration of novels we thought we knew well. Boldest of all is Professor Thompson's discernment of the 'black buck' standing behind the flashy white exteriors of Jay Gatsby; but every chapter here has its audacious new findings. The Tragic Black Buck will change the way we read canonical American literature as well as the current American scene, where masking and double-masking seem to define so much in our national identities. This book is a triumph."-Robert G. O'Meally, Zora Neale Hurston Professor of English and Comparative Literature, Columbia University