Cover

Praise for William Melvin Kelley’s

A Different Drummer

“Powerful….Unflinching….A gift to literature.”

—The Observer (London)

“So brilliant is this initial novel that one must consider Mr. Kelley for tentative future placement among the paragons of American letters.”

—Boston Sunday Herald

“Beautifully written and thought-provoking.”

—The Evening Sun (Baltimore)

“This first novel just perhaps could play a part in changing our history.”

—The Kansas City Star

“An astounding achievement….Timeless, mythic….Still relevant and powerful today.”

—The Sunday Times (London)

“Breathtakingly good….Must be one of the most assured debuts of all time.”

—Sjón, author of CoDex 1962

“An imaginative, brilliantly observed world of the twentieth-century Deep South in turmoil….Kelley delivers his observations with caustic humour and surprising compassion. The comparisons of his debut to the books of James Baldwin and Faulkner are justified.”

—The Irish Times

“A rediscovered classic of African American literature…a powerful novel that weaves intricate themes like racism, systemized oppression, and identity together.”

—Book Riot

William Melvin Kelley

A Different Drummer

William Melvin Kelley was born in New York City in 1937 and attended the Fieldston School and Harvard. The author of four novels and a short story collection, he was a writer in residence at the State University of New York at Geneseo and also taught at The New School and Sarah Lawrence College. He was awarded the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award for lifetime achievement and the Dana Reed Prize for creative writing. He died in 2017.

Other Titles

BY WILLIAM MELVIN KELLEY

Dem

A Drop of Patience

Dunfords Travels Everywheres

Dancers on the Shore (short stories)

Dedication

The trouble with writing a book, especially the first one, is that by the time you are twenty-three years old, you feel indebted to so many people that you cannot decide to whom you will dedicate it. You must weigh and eliminate. And that is painful because a great many were kind and it is hard to say that one person was more kind than another.

And so, although this book is dedicated to three people in particular, I would like to thank all of the others, who, over the years and especially since I started this book, were concerned enough about me to give me an opinion, either literary or personal, though I did not always take it.

And all of those who have said to me, at one time or another:

“Why don’t you come to dinner tonight?”

“You can spend a couple of nights at my place.”

“Would you like me to type a couple of pages for you?”

“Here. You can pay me back when you get some money.”

Thank you all again. I hope some day I will get around to you all individually.

AND THE DEDICATIONS:

To my mother, Narcissa, 1906–1957, who, in the quietly courageous way that she went about everything, challenged death so I could be born, and won.