From one of the most important American novelists of the twentieth century--a novel of sexual racial political artistic passions set in Greenwich Village Harlem and France. Brilliant and fiercely told. -- The New York Times One of The Atlantic s Great American Novels of the Past 100 Years Stunning for its emotional intensity and haunting sensuality this book depicts men and women blacks and whites stripped of their masks of gender and race by love and hatred at the most elemental and sublime. Nominated as one of America s best-loved novels by PBS s The Great American Read.