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Black Bottom Saints: A Novel (2020)

av Alice Randall

MedlemmarRecensionerPopularitetGenomsnittligt betygOmnämnanden
1135239,181 (3.57)5
Fiction. African American Fiction. Literature. Historical Fiction. HTML:

An enthralling literary tour-de-force that pays tribute to Detroit's legendary neighborhood, a mecca for jazz, sports, and politics, Black Bottom Saints is a powerful blend of fact and imagination reminiscent of E.L. Doctorow's classic novel Ragtime and Marlon James' Man Booker Award-winning masterpiece, A Brief History of Seven Killings.

From the Great Depression through the post-World War II years, Joseph "Ziggy" Johnson, has been the pulse of Detroit's famous Black Bottom. A celebrated gossip columnist for the city's African-American newspaper, the Michigan Chronicle, he is also the emcee of one of the hottest night clubs, where he's rubbed elbows with the legendary black artists of the era, including Ethel Waters, Billy Eckstein, and Count Basie. Ziggy is also the founder and dean of the Ziggy Johnson School of Theater. But now the doyen of Black Bottom is ready to hang up his many dapper hats.

As he lays dying in the black-owned-and-operated Kirkwood Hospital, Ziggy reflects on his life, the community that was the center of his world, and the remarkable people who helped shape it.

Inspired by the Catholic Saints Day Books, Ziggy curates his own list of Black Bottom's venerable "52 Saints." Among them are a vulnerable Dinah Washington, a defiant Joe Louis, and a raucous Bricktop. Randall balances the stories of these larger-than-life "Saints" with local heroes who became household names, enthralling men and women whose unstoppable ambition, love of style, and faith in community made this black Midwestern neighborhood the rival of New York City's Harlem.

Accompanying these "tributes" are thoughtfully paired cocktails??special drinks that capture the essence of each of Ziggy's saints??libations as strong and satisfying as Alice Randall's wholly original view of a place and time unlike any other.

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» Se även 5 omnämnanden

Visar 5 av 5
Excellent book. I wish I could give it 5 stars, but I'm not a fan of Imari Parks' narration.It can be an uncomfortable listen for a middle-aged, middle class, white woman, but it is so worthwhile. ( )
  NancyinA2 | Feb 3, 2022 |
This novel is a novel within a novel within a novel with drink recipes. It is a tribute to Black Detroit through the 40s to 1967. ( )
  mstruck | Mar 19, 2021 |
Basically, thus is a history of a section of Detroit which was home to an incredible number of black artists and performers. As a white reader, I was saddened to hear of the numerous times that black performers were copied by white performers who went on to great fame. It is well written, interesting, and educational! ( )
  hemlokgang | Jan 23, 2021 |
Hagiography of Old Black-American Detroit
Review of the Amistad hardcover edition (August 2020)
A cradle-to-grave Catholic, and an altar boy, Ziggy grew up reading Butler's Lives of the Saints. Originally published in twelve volumes in the 1750s, 200 years later when Ziggy was planning, in the summer of 1952, for the opening of his Ziggy Johnson School of the Theatre in Detroit, Michigan, four-volume sets of Butler's Lives were almost as common as rosaries in Black Catholic American homes. On his deathbed, Ziggy wrote his own Lives of the Black Bottom Saints. In it he lays out the unexpected roots of both Motown music and Black girl magic, as well as fifty-two paths from trauma to transcendence. - excerpt from pg. 353, Black Bottom Saints

Alice Randall's Black Bottom Saints is one ambitious historical fiction that portrays 52 various figures, mostly Black American and Detroit associated, as mid-20th century "Saints" to be celebrated as inspirational to Black American culture. That ambition and the research that was involved would rate a 5-star rating. So why a 3-star mark for the general reader?

It is maybe not so compelling as a novel, as it reads as 52 short stories with one wrap-around arc which is the story of its fictional creation. Most of the portraits are framed with introductions by Mari Stanley, the fictional god-daughter of Ziggy (and the proxy of author Randall, with whom she shares some biographical history), who is completing Johnson's work and telling her own life story in the process. Each portrait is end framed by a cocktail libation inspired the classic The Ideal Bartender (1917) by Tom Bullock (1872-1964).

There is an element of coded vernacular that may also serve to distance the reader depending on their own heritage. The people and culture that Ziggy Johnson writes about is often called "Sepian", which seems to be a word used in order to avoid using "Black", "Colored" or "Negro." It does have an elegance to it, but it seemed unfamiliar every time I read it. Several running characters are provided with vernacular nicknames along the way, which again becomes disassociative as you pause each time to remember who "Colored Girl", "The Natchez Belle", "Baby Doll" etc. actually are (i.e. Ziggy's god-daughter, Ziggy's Mother, Ziggy's Wife).

The cocktails are also a somewhat distancing factor as you puzzle over their ingredients esp. if you are not a mixed drinks connoisseur (e.g. What is a jigger?, What is a pony?, What is bar sugar? etc.).

Still, this was a fascinating and ambitious bit of fiction with a huge amount of often humorous anecdotal information about the historical figures that it portrays. Only about a quarter of them were previously known to me from the worlds of entertainment and sports.

I read Black Bottom Saints as the August 2020 selection from Parnassus Books First Editions Club blind subscription generously gifted to me by Liisa, Martin & family. Much continued thanks for the interesting variety that it provides!

Trivia and Links
I attempted to research the difference between a jigger and a pony measure in cocktail mixology and could not really find a definitive answer. Jigger measures seem to come in all sizes ranging from 0.5 to 2.0 ounces. A pony measure does seem to be what is considered a small shot or a pony shot from a 1.5 ounce shot glass. I'm going to guess then that the standard jigger is the 1.5 ounce or the full shot glass and then the pony is the 1.0 ounce (i.e. 2/3rds of a shot glass).
References:
Jiggers at https://thecocktailnovice.com/resources/barware-basics/barware-basics-bar-jigger...
Glasses (see Shot Glasses) at https://thecocktailnovice.com/cocktail-glasses-basics-beginners/ ( )
1 rösta alanteder | Oct 11, 2020 |
Alice Randall is the Harvard-educated author of novels, including The Wind Done Gone, Pushkin and the Queen of Spades, Rebel Yell, and Ada's Rules. An award-winning songwriter, she co-wrote the #1 hit XXX’s and OOO’s which celebrates Aretha Franklin. With her daughter, Caroline Randall Williams, she co-authored the acclaimed cookbook Soul Food Love which won the NAACP Image award and the young adult novel The Diary of B. B. Bright, Possible Princess, which received the Phillis Wheatley Award. A Professor and Writer-in-Residence at Vanderbilt University, Randall teaches courses on soul food, African-American children's literature, and African-American film. A native of Detroit, she lives in Nashville, Tennessee.
  MUHAMMADHARIS | Oct 13, 2021 |
Visar 5 av 5
Back in the heyday of Detroit — from the Great Depression through the 1950s — Joseph "Ziggy" Johnson knew just about everybody who was worth knowing in the shops, bars, churches, theaters and nightclubs that lined the streets of that city's celebrated Black neighborhood, called "Black Bottom." ...Ziggy Johnson is just one of the over 50 mostly real life African American artists, doctors, sports figures, activists and behind-the-scenes movers and shakers who populate this novel — many of whom I've never heard of and most of whom I now want to know more about. I can't think of a more sparkling way to get some education about the history of Black Detroit beyond Motown than to read Randall's novel.... Black Bottom Saints is a gorgeous swirl of fiction, history and motor oil; there are also plenty of cocktail recipes here to make the rougher stories go down a little smoother.
 
You can see pictures of the impresario Joe “Ziggy” Johnson on the internet, wearing a beautiful suit and surrounded by beautiful women. But if you want to hear him, get to know him and be dazzled by him, you need to go back to his world, his “caramel Camelot” — Detroit from the late 1930s to the late 1960s.... Framed as a deathbed memoir, Randall’s novel presents mini-biographies of the friends and acquaintances Ziggy deems worthy of his pantheon, each accompanied by the appropriate libation. Some of the chosen are famous; others ought to be. And all have been included because, in Ziggy’s sphere of operations, “God doesn’t make saints, people do.” ...And lest we quibble that some of his honorees didn’t spend much time in the Detroit neighborhood known as Black Bottom, he reminds us that it’s both a place and “an attitude” — “a strong cocktail that made a person believe they could do what they wanted to do, they could be who they wanted to be.”
tillagd av Lemeritus | ändraNew York Times, Alida Becker (betalvägg) (Sep 1, 2020)
 
Through a narrative shaped as a book of saints’s biographies, from poet Robert Hayden to singer Ethel Waters, Ziggy records his encounters with 16 famous and lesser-known characters who made Black Bottom, the commercial and residential heart of Detroit’s black community in the early 20th century, into a destination for “breadwinners” fleeing the Jim Crow South in search of a better life. As Ziggy reflects on his life from his deathbed, the reader learns about the family he made from strangers and students—most notably the tennis player Althea Gibson, referred to throughout as “Colored Girl.” Randall’s portrait of black America sheds light on cultural history through startlingly personal moments, such as Ziggy dropping his Women’s Club aunt Sadye Pryor’s name for social currency. Whether chronicling famous historical figures or local characters, Randall makes Ziggy’s saints worthy of his reflection. This works as a memorable love letter to Detroit, as well as a remarkable tableau.
tillagd av Lemeritus | ändraPublisher's Weekly (Jun 12, 2020)
 
The last testament of an African American showbiz insider is here rendered as an impassioned, richly detailed, and sometimes heartbreaking evocation of Black culture in 20th century Detroit and beyond. If Randall’s book at times gets carried away with its emotions, it also compels you to ride along with your own.
tillagd av Lemeritus | ändraKirkus Reviews (Jun 2, 2020)
 
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Camelot. Seven years ago, in late 1961, I saw that musical in New York City. Detroit's best-known songstress-daughter, Della Reese, was booked on The Ed Sullivan Show, which made the time right for a few of us to fly to Gotham from Motown. -Introduction
The poet known as Robert Hayden was born in Detroit's Black Bottom in 1913 to Ruth Sheffield and was named Asa Sheffield. -Week 1, First Sunday after Father's Day
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Fiction. African American Fiction. Literature. Historical Fiction. HTML:

An enthralling literary tour-de-force that pays tribute to Detroit's legendary neighborhood, a mecca for jazz, sports, and politics, Black Bottom Saints is a powerful blend of fact and imagination reminiscent of E.L. Doctorow's classic novel Ragtime and Marlon James' Man Booker Award-winning masterpiece, A Brief History of Seven Killings.

From the Great Depression through the post-World War II years, Joseph "Ziggy" Johnson, has been the pulse of Detroit's famous Black Bottom. A celebrated gossip columnist for the city's African-American newspaper, the Michigan Chronicle, he is also the emcee of one of the hottest night clubs, where he's rubbed elbows with the legendary black artists of the era, including Ethel Waters, Billy Eckstein, and Count Basie. Ziggy is also the founder and dean of the Ziggy Johnson School of Theater. But now the doyen of Black Bottom is ready to hang up his many dapper hats.

As he lays dying in the black-owned-and-operated Kirkwood Hospital, Ziggy reflects on his life, the community that was the center of his world, and the remarkable people who helped shape it.

Inspired by the Catholic Saints Day Books, Ziggy curates his own list of Black Bottom's venerable "52 Saints." Among them are a vulnerable Dinah Washington, a defiant Joe Louis, and a raucous Bricktop. Randall balances the stories of these larger-than-life "Saints" with local heroes who became household names, enthralling men and women whose unstoppable ambition, love of style, and faith in community made this black Midwestern neighborhood the rival of New York City's Harlem.

Accompanying these "tributes" are thoughtfully paired cocktails??special drinks that capture the essence of each of Ziggy's saints??libations as strong and satisfying as Alice Randall's wholly original view of a place and time unlike any other.

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