Magic City Books is thrilled to welcome Jewell Parker Rhodes for a virtual author event in celebration of the reissue of her magnificent novel, Magic City.
With a new Afterword from the author reflecting on the 100th anniversary of one of the most heinous tragedies in American history–the 1921 burning of Greenwood, an affluent black section of Tulsa, Oklahoma, known as the Negro Wall Street–Jewell Parker Rhodes’ powerful and unforgettable novel of racism, vigilantism, and injustice, weaves history, mysticism, and murder into a harrowing tale of dreams and violence gone awry.
This free event will be hosted on the Zoom platform and Facebook Live. To register in advance for the event on Zoom visit: https://magiccitybooks.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_0-acR4FER3-MxVFG2_02Hg.
After registering you will receive a confirmation email with details on how to join the event on Tuesday May 4 at 7:00 pm CT.
Magic City is available now, to order visit Magic City Books in person or online here: https://magiccitybooks.square.site/product/magic-city/439.
About Magic City
Tulsa, Oklahoma, 1921. A white woman and a black man are alone in an elevator. Suddenly, the woman screams, the man flees, and the chase to capture and lynch him begins.
When Joe Samuels, a young Black man with dreams of becoming the next Houdini, is accused of rape, he must perform his greatest escape by eluding a bloodthirsty mob.
Meanwhile, Mary Keane, the white, motherless daughter of a farmer who wants to marry her off to the farmhand who viciously raped her, must find the courage to help exonerate the man she accused with her panicked cry.
Magic City evokes one of the darkest chapters of twentieth century, Jim Crow America, painting an intimate portrait of the heroic but doomed stand that pitted the National Guard against a small band of black men determined to defend the prosperous town they had built.
Jewell Parker Rhodes is the recipient of a Yaddo Creative Writing Fellowship and the National Endowment of the Arts Award in Fiction. She is professor of creative writing and American literature and Director of the M.F.A. program in creative writing at Arizona State University.
