02683cam a2200337 i 4500 1666195180 TxAuBib 20241022120000.0 240119s2024||||||||||||||||||||||||eng|u 40032429617 TxAuBib rda Jones, Gayl, author. The unicorn woman / Gayl Jones. Boston, Massachusetts : Beacon Press, [2024] 176 pages. txt rdacontent n rdamedia nc rdacarrier Book I. A young man's fancy -- Book II. What's in a horn? Or "Are you sure this legend is the real one?" -- Book III. Are you Gamos Gandy, by any chance? -- Book IV. Getting carnivalized. Marking a dramatic new direction for Jones, a riveting tale set in the Post WWII South, narrated by a Black soldier who returns to Jim Crow and searches for a mythical ideal. Set in the early 1950s, this latest novel from Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award finalist Gayl Jones follows the witty but perplexing army veteran Buddy Ray Guy as he embodies the fate of Black soldiers who return, not in glory, but into their Jim Crow communities. A cook and tractor repairman, Buddy was known as Budweiser to his army pals because he's a wise guy. But underneath that surface, he is a true self-educated intellectual and a classic seeker: looking for religion, looking for meaning, looking for love. As he moves around the south, from his hometown of Lexington, Kentucky, primarily, to his second home of Memphis, Tennessee, he recalls his love affairs in post-war France and encounters with a variety of colorful characters and mythical prototypes: circus barkers, topiary trimmers, landladies who provide shelter and plenty of advice for their all-Black clientele, proto feminists, and bigots. The lead among these characters is, of course, The Unicorn Woman, who exists, but mostly lives in Bud's private mythology. Jones offers a rich, intriguing exploration of Black (and Indigenous) people in a time and place of frustration, disappointment, and spiritual hope. 20241022. African Americans Southern States Fiction. World War, 1939-1945 Veterans Fiction. Segregation Fiction. Historical fiction. Southern States Social conditions 1945- Fiction. Southern States Race relations 20th century Fiction. Veterans Fiction. United States Race relations Fiction. United States Social conditions Fiction.