The Motorcyclist — George Elliott Clarke

Just start your engine. Go.Carl Black is an intellectual and an artist, a traveller and an unapologetic womanizer. A motorcyclist. He burns for the bohemian life, but is trapped in a railway worker’s prosaic—and at times humiliating—existence. Set in 1959 in and around Halifax, Nova Scotia, the novel vividly recounts Carl’s travels and romantic exploits as he tours the backroads of the East Coast and courts a bevy of beautiful women. The Motorcyclist is a portrait of a black working-class man caught between the expectations of his time and the gleaming possibilities of the open road.In vibrant, energetic, sensual prose, George Elliott Clarke brilliantly illuminates the life of a young black man striving for pleasure, success and, most of all, respect.