Exhausted, he ends up in a tiny village, where he is cared for by the family of a marabou, or holy man. ?' Quitting the Corps, Norris then drifts 'half-bemused, half-terrified' through a series of surreal experiences punctuated by nightmarish bus rides. Recruited by the Peace Corps, he fights off malarial fever while wondering, 'Am I black enough now. McKnight's ( Moustapha's Eclipse ) first novel is set in Senegal, where Evan Norris, a restless Afro-American from Denver, has wandered to escape his comfortable middle-class existence and near-engagement to a racially aware, black American psychiatrist.

Petersburg, Fla.Ĭopyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc. It unfolds slowly, perhaps a bit too slowly, but those who persevere will find it rewarding. In some respects reminiscent of John Fowles's The Magus, this first novel is not easy reading. Without a 'soul' of his own, he is doomed, as the marabou perceives, to eat the souls of others. Evan's tragedy is that of a man caught between cultures. He contracts malaria, suffers hallucinations, and is used by the local marabou-a kind of shaman-as a pawn in an elaborate game of revenge. His search for self takes him via the Peace Corps to Senegal, where, rather than finding his roots, he comes to realize how alien they are to him. black folks to madness.' The words prove ironic, for it is Evan who will suffer most from a lack of identity, who is 'nervous' about his blackness, and who finds himself driven to the edge of madness. Evan Norris, a young black from a well-to-do family residing in the suburbs of Denver, notes that 'the black people we did know were not like us.

I Get on the Bus by Reginald McKnight