{"product_id":"love-story-black-paperback","title":"Love Story Black - Paperback","description":"\u003cdiv\u003e\u003cp style=\"text-align: right;\"\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/reportcopyrightinfringement.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\"\u003e\u003cb\u003eReport copyright infringement\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\u003cp\u003eby \u003cb\u003eWilliam Demby\u003c\/b\u003e (Author), \u003cb\u003eIshmael Reed\u003c\/b\u003e (Introduction by)\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eThis \"thoroughly engaging\" novel by the author of \u003ci\u003eBeetlecreek \u003c\/i\u003e(\"[a] quiet masterpiece\" --\u003ci\u003eKirkus Reviews\u003c\/i\u003e) follows a Black journalist in the 1970s whose bourgeois life is turned upside down by the subject of his writing assignment. \u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\"One of the great novelists of the last 100 years.\" --Ishmael Reed, author of \u003ci\u003eMumbo Jumbo\u003c\/i\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eIn the midst of the tumultuous 1970s, Edwards, a freelance writer and Black Studies professor at a small college in New York City, is assigned a story for New Black Woman magazine: a profile of Mona Pariss, an aging former singer whose popularity once rivaled Josephine Baker's. With his creditors at the door, Professor Edwards beats a path to the crumbling Harlem apartment house where Mona Pariss, once the toast of Europe for her singing, now lives in squalid obscurity. As his interviews progress, Edwards is gradually drawn into Mona's strange world. At the same time, he finds himself entering into an affair with Hortense, a beautiful young assistant at New Black Woman. From revolutionary downtown poetry readings to a hospital bed on the Continent and back, becoming entangled in the lives of both women might turn Edwards's bourgeois life upside down for good. A smart satire with a biting wit, \u003ci\u003eLove Story Black\u003c\/i\u003e is an unmissable novel by one of the masters of midcentury American fiction.\u003ch3\u003eAuthor Biography\u003c\/h3\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eWilliam Demby\u003c\/b\u003e was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, on December 25, 1922, and attended college in Clarksburg, West Virginia, before enlisting in World War II and serving in Italy. He graduated from Fisk University in 1947 then moved abroad to Rome, where he spent the next two decades working as a novelist, journalist, and script translator and screenwriter for the Italian cinema. In the late 1960s, Demby joined the faculty at The College of Staten Island, dividing his time between the United States and Italy. His works include \u003ci\u003eBeetlecreek\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eThe Catacombs\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eLove Story Black\u003c\/i\u003e, and \u003ci\u003eKing Comus\u003c\/i\u003e. In 2006, he was the recipient of the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award for Lifetime Achievement. He died in Sag Harbor, New York, in 2013. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cb\u003eIshmael Reed \u003c\/b\u003eis the author of over twenty-five books and plays, including \u003ci\u003eMumbo Jumbo\u003c\/i\u003e and\u003ci\u003e Yellow Back Radio Broke-Down\u003c\/i\u003e. He is also a publisher, television producer, songwriter, radio and television commentator, lecturer, and has long been devoted to exploring an alternative black aesthetic: the trickster tradition, or Neo-Hoodooism. He has received the MacArthur Fellowship, the Los Angeles Times Robert Kirsch Lifetime Achievement Award, and the Lila Wallace-Reader's Digest Award. Reed has been nominated for a Pulitzer Prize and is the only person to be nominated for the National Book Award in two categories in the same year.\n            \u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eNumber of Pages:\u003c\/strong\u003e 192\u003c\/div\u003e\n            \u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eDimensions:\u003c\/strong\u003e 0.72 x 7.96 x 5.13 IN\u003c\/div\u003e\n            \u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003ePublication Date:\u003c\/strong\u003e May 12, 2026\u003c\/div\u003e\n            ","brand":"BooksCloud","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":53377105297715,"sku":"9798217007356","price":24.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0300\/5595\/6612\/files\/VhgvXU3rUq9798217007356.webp?v=1779314905","url":"https:\/\/www.vysn.com\/products\/love-story-black-paperback","provider":"VYSN","version":"1.0","type":"link"}