Yabo — Alexis De Veaux

Fiction. African American Studies. LGBT Studies. Women's Studies. Winner of the 2015 Lambda Literary Award for Lesbian General Fiction. "See YABO... like a Mingus composition: Pentecostal, blues-inflected, full of wit and that deep literacy of the black diaspora. The present, the past, the uncertain future collapse upon themselves in this narrative of place/s. Our dead move with us: behind us, above us, confronting us -- in Manhattan; Asheville (N.C.); Buffalo, NY; Jamaica; the hold of a funky slave ship; crossing and bending lines between genders, sexualities, longing and geographies. Time is a river endlessly coursing, shallow in many places, deep for long miles, and, finally, deadly as the hurricane that engulfs and destroys the slave vessel, 'Henrietta Marie.' YABO calls our ghosts back and holds us accountable for memory." -- Cheryl Clarke, author, Living as a Lesbian and The Days of Good Looks

"Alexis De Veaux laces together the past and the present with poetic elegance in an intricate and delicate pattern of call and response…Echoing the work of Jean Toomer and Toni Morrison, YABO speaks in a powerful and insistent cadence about things we may have forgotten: death, desire, magic and the drum beat of resilience." -- Jewelle Gomez, author, The Gilda Stories

"'Living between possibilities' is a key theme of and narrative hinge in Alexis De Veaux's ever-surprising innovative hybrid novella YABO. As much a work of spiritual excavation and conjuration as fiction, this text opens doors to worlds we might otherwise pass by, showing in the process what it truly means to create. A poetic, enthralling, unforgettable text." -- John Keene, author, Annotations and Counternarratives