Tag: Andrew Rhodes

Mass-market Monday | Ishmael Reed’s The Last Days of Louisiana Red

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The Last Days of Louisiana Red, Ishmael Reed. Bard Books, First Bard Printing (1976). Cover art is by Andrew Rhodes (not credited). 191 pages.

From my review of The Last Days of Louisiana Red:

Ishmael Reed’s 1974 novel The Last Days of Louisiana Red is a sharp, zany satire of US culture at the end of the twentieth century. The novel, Reed’s fourth, is a sequel of sorts to Mumbo Jumbo (1972), and features that earlier novel’s protagonist, the Neo-HooDoo ghost detective Papa LaBas.

In Mumbo Jumbo, Reed gave us the story of an uptight secret society, the Wallflower Order, and their attempt to root out and eradicate “Jes’ Grew,” a psychic virus that spreads freedom and takes its form in arts like jazz and the jitterbug. The Last Days of Louisiana Red also employs a psychic virus to drive its plot, although this transmission is far deadlier. “Louisiana Red” is a poisonous mental disease that afflicts black people in the Americas, causing them to fall into a neo-slave mentality in which they act like “Crabs in the Barrel…Each crab trying to keep the other from reaching the top.”

Four Books (By Ishmael Reed)

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Seven years ago I came across three lovely 1970s mass market paperback Ishmael Reed novels. In the years since then, I’ve consumed most of Reed’s novels, even picking up an undervalued signed copy online. Two of my favorite Reed editions are from Avon Bard. This past Sunday, I came across two more Reed Avon Bard editions, and snapped them up, despite already owning them in hardback. While no designer or artist is credited, the signature on this edition of Flight to Canada clearly says “Andrew Rhodes”:

I’m pretty sure that Rhodes is the artist (and possibly designer) of the other Avon Bard Reeds I picked up years ago, Mumbo Jumbo—

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—and Yellow Back Radio Broke-Down (the signature is clear on this one):

 

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We can also see “Rhodes” on the copy of The Last Days of Louisiana Red I picked up on Sunday. (This book also has the stamp of a guy who lives (lived?) in Perry, Florida, a stamp I’ve come to recognize over the years as a guy who, at least at one point, had very similar taste to my own. I have a lot of his old books and I wonder about him sometimes.)

Here are some reviews I’ve written of Reed’s novels over the past few years:

A review of Ishmael Reed’s sharp satire The Last Days of Louisiana Red

Blog about Ishmael Reed’s 1976 neo-slave narrative Flight to Canada

A review of Yellow Back Radio Broke-Down, Ishmael Reed’s syncretic Neo-HooDoo revenge Western

A review of Ishmael Reed’s Christmas satire, The Terrible Twos

Blog about Ishmael Reed’s novel Juice! (Book acquired, 10 Dec. 2019)