A powerful book set in Southern USA during the 1930's - 1960's. At times I struggled to keep up with the storyline as I felt it jumped too much.
Recounting the strong racial divide in the Southern states was compelling reading and I'd definitely recommend it to people interested in reading about this disturbing period in American history.

+Many thanks to Quercus Books and Netgalley for providing me with ARC in exchange for my honest review.*
The Different Drummer was a debut novel published in 1964 by a writer whose name nowadays is mentioned together with James Baldwin and William Faulkner, however, he is not widely known outside literary circles. I had never heard of him before, which was a shame, and reading this book was a journey which I now know I should have taken years ago. The novel reflects on racial problems back in the 1950s and is exceptionally powerful. My personal view is that William Melvin Kelley's novel deserves all publicity it can get.

Wow! Truely an undiscovered classic as soon as I finished it I wanted to start it again. The quality of writing is exceptional and the individual characters all have a distinctive voice and point of view

I had heard so much about this book and I was utterly astonished that this book had been written many years ago and had only just been recently discovered.
It is written and described from the point of view of many. There is a very eclectic selection of characters.
As I was reading this I had a very sad feeling inside. Some things still haven’t changed in today’s society.
It’s a book that makes to think
Thank you to both NetGalley and Quercus Book for my eARC of this book in exchange for my honest unbiased review

5★
“The last letter was delivered one morning after David had left for the day.
. . .
Then he folded it and slid it back in the envelope and said, ‘Well, that’s the last one. He’s promised. Perhaps I’ll have some peace now.’

For a second I felt very warm and good inside because I was listening to his words, and not the way he’d said them.”

I'm guilty of hearing what I want to hear sometimes, too. I’ve had to let this story settle in my mind awhile before deciding what affected me the most. It takes place in a fictitious, slender state, about 50,000 square miles wedged between Mississippi and Alabama, pinching a bit from both and leaving them each with double that. It’s this little wedge that begins an enormous change in Kelley’s United States. He wrote this when he was 24, and I’m glad to see it republished today.

There's an interesting article in The New Yorker about Kelley and the book. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/01/29/the-lost-giant-of-american-literature

Trigger warning – anyone sensitive about the N-word needs to remember when this took place. There is also violence. It was written in 1962, and the plot, or theme, is no secret.

“In June 1957, for reasons yet to be determined, all the state’s Negro inhabitants departed. Today, it is unique in being the only state in the Union that cannot count even one member of the Negro race among its citizens.”

Different voices tell the story throughout, from young Harold (nicknamed “Mister Leland”), his father Harry Leland, the Willsons (the town’s most prominent family), and Tucker Caliban, of course. Tucker is the great-grandson of an imposing African slave called Caliban because he’d risen to mythic stature when he’d been captured and escaped.

“Some fellow . . . thinking he could run down the African, raced his horse straight at him, but the African just grabbed the fellow off the horse’s back like you might catch a ring on a carousel and popped his back over his knee like a dry wishbone and tossed him aside.”

He was said to have been a giant of a man, breaking chains before he was finally caught. “Caliban” (as his owner named “the African”) finally resigned himself to his lot, but his spirit of independence, if not his brawn is passed down to Tucker.

“ . . . a little boy, who already wears glasses, whose head is too large for his spindly body. Behind the glasses there are great, hard brown eyes, with more in them than should be there. That’s Tucker.”

There are white folks in this unnamed strip of a state who are sympathetic to the suffering caused by continued racism and prejudice. We see young Harold Leland struggling to understand what his father Harry teaches him while he sees and hears other adults using the N-word. When he uses it accidentally with a shopkeeper, his father gently chastises him and says he knows it’s hard. He and Harold’s mother have to remind themselves, too, not to use it anymore.

Later, Harold (Mr Leland) notices something odd when his father is talking to Wallace Bedlow, a black man.

“Mister Leland was thinking that Wallace Bedlow had used SIR: Like Papa is older than him, which ain’t so because when Wallace Bedlow takes off his hat, you can see crinkly gray hairs. Still he calls Papa SIR the same’s I’d call him or my papa SIR.”

The friendships across the cultures are real, but definitely lopsided. The whites didn’t see it that way, it’s just the way things were. I think Dymphna Willson considered herself just a normal teenager with no prejudice. After all, Bethrah, the maid, was her closest friend.

“I can remember it all pretty well because I was going through a period in my life when everything was symbolic of SOMETHING, when each second, I thought, I was deciding something big and dramatic. Girls are like that when they’re fifteen, which I was that summer. That was two years ago, almost exactly. Bethrah came to work for us because Missus Caliban, Tucker’s mother, was doing all the work.
. . .
And a good thing about having HER for a friend was that she was colored and there wouldn’t be any competition between us as far as boys were concerned, because that kind of thing always makes girls enemies even if they’re very close.”

See? Nothing to worry about, and fair enough, Dymphna was miserable when Bethrah was leaving the household. But Bethrah certainly knew the score even if Dymphna didn’t admit it.

There’s an interesting story thread about northern activism and the awakening in young southern whites of disturbing feelings about the treatment of their black neighbours. A phrase Kelley is credited with having first put into print is the headline of an article he wrote “If You’re Woke, You Dig It.”

I’d like to think I’m woke, and I dig it, but that could be presumptuous of me. The State may be fictitious and the mass exodus may be fictitious, but the attitudes and conversations and mob mentality could all have been taken from news reports of the time. Sadly, they could be taken from news reports today, I think.

Thanks to NetGalley and Quecus Books/riverrun for the preview copy of what should be in print for a long time now, I hope. #NetGalley #BangTheDrum

‘’David, it’s better the way it is. We can’t push our friendship into places where it’s not wanted. Our friendship need not be all-encompassing; it need not include all of the tribal things that make up life. In our hearts we believe in the same things and what we’re trying to do is work for the day when we CAN, indeed, go to Pudding gathering together.’’
There is a reason that this book is getting so much attention at the moment and it’s because it’s darn good!
It is a solid story which sees all the POC leave the south and stands up well I think in today contemporary story telling, it’s written and read to me very similar to The Underground Railroad.
My only critism was I wanted more or all areas of the story (something I also felt about Underground Railroad) especially the friendship between Bennet and David, and no spoilers but the middle to end really picks up its emotional factor.

Beggars belief that this book was forgotten up until recently. A Different Drummer has the feel of a great American novel, and the story told from multiple points of view made for an incredibly nuanced read.

A story about race relations, slavery and justice, A Different Drummer is sadly just as relevant today as it was when it was first published.

Highly recommended.


This was an ARC in exchange for an honest review. With thanks to Netgalley and Quercus Books

A Different Drummer is being hailed as a lost classic of American literature, but I had no idea quite how exquisite and insightful it was going to be until I was already reading. First published in 1962, by the then twenty-four-year-old Kelley, it earned him comparisons to literary greats such as William Faulkner and James Baldwin. Over fifty years later here it is being republished for a new generation, with its searingly emotive narrative being just as relevant today as when it was first written. It addresses a multitude of topics including slavery, race, ancestry and social justice/injustice, and we experience both the very best of humanity and the very worst throughout this journey.

This is a masterful novel which tells the story of the way in which the white population viewed African-Americans. The way the book is structured is for maximum effect and impact on the reader with each chapter being dedicated to the perspective of one of the white townsfolk. They detail the reaction to the entirety of the African-American population upping sticks and leaving with Tucker Caliban thereby deserting the town of Sutton and the surrounding area. Some of the points-of-view are shocking, upsetting, disgraceful, whilst others are sympathetic to the imposition of inferiority that has been placed on the black population. This mass rejection of slavery and the emotions associated with it, had my body covered in goosebumps. This is a challenging read, but if you are looking for an easy or lighthearted novel, you have come to the wrong place!

I would like to think that things have changed quite a lot since then, but with people like Trump master at the helm of one of the worlds biggest and most influential ships, how much longer is it before white supremacists really gain some control over races they classify as unworthy? I know this is happening right now, I can see the difference in the treatment between whites and blacks, it should not be like this. So long as money, greed, lust and power are what makes the world go around, I can't see anything changing. Can't we all just learn to love one another regardless of any of the features that make us different?

Thought-provoking, heartwrenching and powerful, an incredibly important book and one that will feature in my best of the decade, I am sure of that. Novels like this rarely come along, so if you have the chance then pick it up. Sadly, as the author passed away in 2017, this is likely to be the last work he has published. This makes me sad as he was clearly a very special talent, I have already picked up his previous books. RIP.

Many thanks to riverrun for an ARC. I was not required to post a review, and all thoughts and opinions expressed are my own.

‘Thus begins a legend, Mister Willson.’

A re-publication of what is being hailed as a ‘lost classic’ of American literature, William Melvin Kelley’s 1962 novel centres on a fictional event in a fictional Southern state in 1957 when, following the lead of Tucker Caliban, the entire black population of the state ups and leaves to head north and more freedom. With shades of James Baldwin, and with the nuanced vision of the great American voices of Faulkner, Steinbeck and Lee, this is a visceral examination of Southern attitudes and a nation tearing itself apart. Seen through the shifting perspectives of a variety of white characters the story moves back and forward as we learn more about the Willsons, a typical Southern family dynasty, and the Calibans, especially Tucker, one of a line of slaves in the Willson property.

I did wonder at the outset why Kelley chose to write in this particular way: surely we want to hear the voices of the black population directly, not second- or third-hand and through the prism of the white ‘elite’? But as you read there is a generosity of spirit and a life-force that comes though the pages, and the more sympathetic white characters do indeed become rounded, meaningful characters. This is a book written in a different time, and the language and attitudes reflect that. Nor is it a perfect novel. But it is a telling indictment not only of our current times but every generation in between that the prejudices and issues remain, sometimes not always below the surface. The final scenes are a shocking and violent reminder of the very worst of humankind. No, this is not an easy or comfortable read, but I can totally understand why this is being pushed by the publisher as an important and timely rediscovery. Try to make time to read it, for it is indeed an important work.

(With thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for an ARC in return for an honest and unbiased review.)

'A Different Drummer' explores the reactions of a range of townspeople to the actions and inadvertent triggering of a grassroots revolution by a young man, Tucker Caliban. The book's premise is 'what happens if the entirety of the black population decide they don't have to live the way they are doing in the segregated Deep South of America? What happens if they all just up and leave?'

There are some truly incredible and heart-wrenching themes explored in these chapters. Harry Leland is a man trying to raise his son not to be racist - trying to teach his 8 year old to be more respectful than he himself has been. David Willson is punishing himself, 20 years later, for not having the courage to stand up for the conviction he had in the equality movement. Bethrah Caliban is an educated young black woman who is realising that she has been giving credibility to ideas that repulse her purely because she spent so much of her time trying to prove them wrong.

Tucker Caliban, on the other hand, is a young man who decides that his son will not live in a subordination of his own making. Tucker ends this and insists on moving the history of his family along - and everyone follows him.

It is really a powerful novel.. It is hard to read at times because this is written in the language of the time and it deals with the period of time where segregation was still in effect in the South of America and not the North - if you like your novels to be comforting, this is not for you. If, however, you wish to read books that challenge your thought, if you wish to read fiction which tests your comfort levels and explores important issues, you need to pick this one up. The writing style takes a while to get used to, and the mob of angry white men will renew your anger every time they appear, but by the end of this book it leaves you with something tangibly hopeful. This book aims to show that we do ourselves a disservice by hiding the relationships we have with others because society insists on a divide - and we need to stop reinforcing the divide.

At the end of this novel we see a young white man stand up for an older black man he does not know. The older man has seen the change in the town and feels that his purpose in creating such change is now redundant. The young man, on the other hand, has just begun to realise that he is right to fight for friendship, tolerance and justice.

This is a brilliant rediscovered novel - I can completely see why it is being hailed as a lost giant of American literature. This is a book that genuinely delivers an exploration on race relations at one of the most painful times in American history whilst, at the same time, painting a hopeful picture of what they should - and could still - come to be. This is the book that I wanted Go Set a Watchman to be. It was hard to read due to the writing style in places, but the way we see the ripple effect of Tucker's actions in this fictional town make for a wonderful read.

Thank you to NetGalley and Quercus Books for an advance review copy in return for an honest review. This review will be posted on Instagram @JesikasBookshelf on 01/11/2018.

For a short novel, this packs a powerful and hard hitting punch. Written by the Afro-American William Melvin Kelley over 50 years ago, I had never heard of the author or the book, and it seems that it is only now that it is receiving the acclaim it so thoroughly deserves. With language that reflects the time, it was published amidst the background of the divisive and bitter fight for civil rights in the US, serving as a highly imaginative allegory. Set in the late 1950s in a fictitious US southern state and fictitious town of Sutton, this is a treatise on race, on inequality, of power and justice that, damningly, is as relevant today in our contemporary world as it is of the historical period it speaks of.

The quiet and determined Tucker Caliban is a descendent of an African Chief, arriving in the US enslaved. One day he salts his fields, kills his animals, burns his house and heads off into a unknown far yonder with his wife, Bethrah, and their child. This seemingly inexplicable act triggers off an unexpected and surprising exodus of every black person in the state, observed by the white population. The focus of the book is on the reaction, thoughts and behaviour of the white residents faced with these bewildering acts, such as Tucker Caliban's boss, David Willson. Why would the entire black community up sticks leave? The multiple perspectives are revealing of this historical time and there is some curiosity in Tucker's background. There is hardly anyone with sufficient self awareness or perception to see their responsibilities in the momentous acts that have occurred bar the odd exception. Instead, we have an insight into their needs and desires.

This is a brilliantly insightful and thought provoking book, a portrait of a time, by a talented writer unafraid of taking an unusual approach and perspective. I found it a lyrical, mesmerising and emotionally heartbreaking read. I cannot do anything but recommend it highly!! Many thanks to Quercus for an ARC.

Originally written in 1962 and published in 1964, this is more nuanced than I perhaps expected as it engages coolly with issues of race, class and, to a lesser extent, gender in America. The starting point is the event flagged in the blurb, but actually the book isn't so much a response to Tucker Caliban's non-violent act of defiance and rejection as an exploration of the parallel stories that run alongside Tucker's own life. There <i>is</i> a horribly violent, xenophobic chorus of white men who respond at the start and end of the book, culminating in a horrific, if not unpredictable, act that closes the story, but the substance is more varied, even more cautiously optimistic, than that end.

One of the things that impressed me is Kelley's refusal to create angels and demons in his characters: Tucker is no impressive hero - he's small, with a high-pitched voice, uneducated, often inarticulate especially in comparison with his vibrant, college-educated, beautiful wife - yet his instinctual act is one that we can get behind.

Equally, we have a Black Jesuits group, radical and uncompromising, who grow out of a student socialist/civil rights group who 'have a doctrine which is a mixture of Mein Kampf, Das Kapital, and the Bible. The group is anti-Semitic'. This ability and willingness to create flawed black characters with racist agendas of their own raises the novel above political polemic, problematising easy approaches to identity politics and race.

The Wilson characters are also more fully-fleshed: Camille who makes friends with her beautiful black maid but can't help thinking that she'll never have to compete with her 'as far as boys were concerned'; her husband David who is active in civil rights politics in his Ivy League college but who, despite his beliefs, 'when the time came to stand up for it, I didn't. I retreated.'

This is a short book (c.200pp.) and a fast read - it could perhaps have been developed more but remains an impactful novel that speaks to our present.

A descendent of African slave of legendary size and strength, Tucker Caliban breaks his chains in a much quieter but ultimately far more impactful manner. With little preparation or warning, he up and leaves his burning farmhouse and salt-scattered land with barely a backwards glance. Behind him follows, not only his faithful (and somewhat bewildered) college-educated wife Bethrah Caliban, but also the entire black population of the state. Like the Pied Piper of Hamelin people parade after him never to be seen again. In cars, buses and on foot, certain only about their departure, men and women gather their families; pack up everything they can carry and leave with their doors swinging and no intention of returning.
As they go, they are watched by the white faction of the community-people who they have served and grown with. People who they have trusted and (in some cases) formed friendships with and respect for. Yet an underlying threat always lurks and the relationships are never equal. Beyond the surface of a state where the population works alongside one another with the dispersal of power and class embedded and accepted, is the growing realisation (amongst the African Americans) and a developing acceptance (amongst the whites) that times are a-changing.
But changes are slow, and never more laborious than in the adjustment of individual opinion and accepted norms. Consequently, when violence erupts even the most liberal and rational community members do little beyond a shrugging of shoulders. Knowing that no fault will be found; no court will admonish and no judge will punish, they are left with little alternative.

As for the writing itself: I raced through the first chapters of the book. Employing third person to story-tell, Kelley quickly sparked my interest, pulling me into the home of the Willson's where Tucker Calliban works.
However, when the author switches to first person to orate the thoughts and experiences of the white folk chapter by chapter, my interest and enjoyment dwindled. Not only did the story slow dramatically, but the voices often appeared somewhat contrived and difficult to distinguish. The voice of David Willson (Calliban's boss), for example, being not a world away from his teenage daughter's -Dymphna Willson. Thus, when Kelley returned to his all-seeing narration at the end, my passion for the story and my engagement with the characters had diminished.
Whilst the final scenes cannot fail to leave one feeling flat and frustrated by a world where we still struggle with racial equality, their impact was dulled. Frustratingly, my lasting thoughts are more focussed on Kelley's choice of writing style, rather than man's prejudices laid bare.

This book is astonishingly great. So great, in fact, I can’t believe that, as an American who has read (mostly by school requirement) most of the classics of the 20th century, I hadn’t heard of it until the summer of 2018.

A Different Drummer is a story about slavery, race, ancestry, and social justice set in a small town called Sutton in an unnamed Southern state in 1957. It’s told from the perspectives of many of the people whose histories are bound together across time in Sutton, and each of these perspectives is written so beautifully and woven to the central narrative so well that, again, I cannot believe I have only just read this for the first time. Reading this “lost classic” is shocking, both in what it details about the past in America and in what it says about the US today, considering this book written in 1962 still feels fresh and relevant in 2018.

Thank you, thank you, thank you to Quercus Books for sending me a copy. I feel like my education in American literature was missing something before I read this. It should be required reading for anyone seeking to understand the United States as it was, as it is, and as it could be.

A Different Drummer is set in a fictional state in the USA, a southern state sandwiched between Mississippi and Alabama of which we never learn the name. One day, a young, black farmer, Tucker Caliban, salts his land, kills his livestock, burns his house and leaves. Then, the whole African-American population of the state ups and leaves.

The story is presented to us in chapters from the point of view of different white members of the community and each chapter opens the story a bit further. Mr Harper relates the story of The African, an ancestor of Tucker Caliban who escaped from a docked ship and ran off carrying his chains and a baby. At the end of the story, The African is dead but the baby survives and his line continues down to Tucker. Mr Harper maintains that The African’s blood is in Tucker and has provoked the action that is central to this story. Harry Leland tells us the story of Tucker’s actions, but then Harry’s son meets the mysterious Reverend Bradshaw who wants to know all about Tucker. And so the details develop and we are pulled deeper and deeper into the story. Why would all the African-Americans in a community suddenly leave?

And what does their leaving mean for the community that remains?

This is a book about race. It is written by a black person who is writing about white people thinking about black people. In this case, the white people are completely confused by the sudden, but completely non-violent, refusal of the African-American community to continue living under condition of subordination.

But it is also a book broader than race. As a Brit living in a country dealing (or failing to deal) with one of the more stupid decisions a country has made, it was hard not to think about Brexit when reading:

”Sure! What we need them for anyways? Look what’s happening in Mississippi or over in Alabama. We don’t have to worry about THAT no more. We got us a new start, like the fellow says. Now we can live like we always lived and don’t have to worry about no n****r come a-knocking at the door, wanting to sit at our supper tables”…”Look-it, there’ll be plenty of work, plenty land - all the work and all the land them n****rs was taking up. We’ll be doing right well soon as we get arranged.”…”But there might be too much work and too much land”…”We might not have enough folks to do it all. That’s some economics I learned upstate. That means we won’t have enough food.”…”We’ll still be better off.”…”Take Thomason there. He’s running the only store in Sutton now. Before, there was two; that n****r up there, he had a store. Now Thomason’s got all the business”…”Yes, but there’s LESS than half the customers.”

(Note the n-word is used a LOT in this book, which is probably more offensive to modern day readers, so be warned).

The book gave me cause to reflect on some of the themes that have been dominant in this year’s Man Booker long list which has several books that talk about borders, about divisions in and between communities. A Different Drummer was first published well over 50 years ago, but its themes and it message are no less relevant now than they were then.

My thanks to Quercus Books for a review copy via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.