A Man Finds His Way — Freddie Lee Johnson III

With his critically acclaimed first novel, Bittersweet, Freddie Lee Johnson III defied the stereotype that black men are willingly detached from their families. This debut also heralded the arrival of a powerful and passionate new voice in fiction. Now this talented author has written A Man Finds His Way, in which a college professor sets out to rebuild his world after a series of bitter blows and shattering events.

Lately, Professor Darius Collins's life has been as tumultuous as the history he teaches in his university class. His girlfriend left him for another dude, his ex-wife's screwing the mayor and going down in political flames along with him, and his son Jarrod has been accused of a vicious crime. And adding insult to the injury, several of his black colleagues are calling him an Uncle Tom for opposing a university visit by the controversial black activist and anti-semite Osmani Bornu.

But if history has taught Darius anything, it's that bringing down one minority group at the expense of another is no solutionâ€"and he won't be bullied into submission. Nor will he let the system take down yet another innocent black youth. But he's got more than a small battle ahead of him, for his son Jarrod, he soon realizes, is a pawn in a dirty game of politics linked to his ex-wife. Can Darius fight the system and winâ€"but even more importantly, can he salvage the spirit of the son who's learning just what life can deal a black American man?

A gripping novel that plunges into the depths of conflicts within the black community and the system that fuels them, A Man Finds His Way brings home real issues under the guise of a genuinely heartfelt story: a family struggling to keep itself intact despite all that rails against it.