Life of Death

Life of Death is a potent, poisonous powerhouse of rage, desperation, and desire laced with maniacal comedy. In one long delirious outburst, narrator Louie Phillips takes aim at life in a crumbling suburb of Washington, D.C., and skewers the bourgeois attitudes that keep him from succeeding as an artist. Phillips, living in a state of rock-bottom exasperation, plots to escape his parents and the education at a black college that he believes is designed to whiten him up.

Determined to make enough money to launch his European art career, Phillips accepts a job for low wages at the Dummheit Cafe, a branch of a worldwide corporation with investments in South Africa. There his co-workers' petty politics and hysterically erotic lifestyle ensnare him. Although he resents his exploitation, the need for money daily lures him back, and fear of his parents' and bosses' reprisals tempers any expression of his true feelings.

Finally, when his mother steals the pittance he saved from his wages, he retaliates by swiping her jewelry and all the money from Dummheit's safe and fleeing to Istanbul. Life of Death creates a stunning narration of a young black man's initiation into adult life and the American workplace. It is a remarkable debut from a writer unafraid of exploding the comforting myths masquerading as contemporary American culture.