All-Night Visitors
Clarence Major ; Bernard W. Bell, fwd.

 Northeastern Library of Black Literature
Northeastern University Press
University Press of New England
1998 • 288 pp. 5 3/4 x 9"
Fiction / African-American Studies / Literature & Language-American


$19.95 Cloth, 978-1-55553-367-0

(Cloth edition is un-jacketed.
Cover illustration is for paperback edition only)


"All-Night Visitors is devoted to lush description. Mr. Major is unquestionably a sincere and passionate writer." —New York Times

First published in 1969 in severely abridged form, Clarence Major's powerful first novel is now available in an unexpurgated paperback edition that restores the full text of his critically acclaimed and controversial work.

All-Night Visitors is the riveting, erotic, and compelling story of Eli Bolton-orphan, college dropout, Vietnam veteran, and sexual voyager-as he struggles to establish a meaningful self-identity in a chaotic and bigoted world.

"More like a surreal rhythm-and-blues prose poem than a conventional novel. . . . Filled with violence, sex, and rage, Major's graphic descriptions are not for the squeamish. Still powerful and disturbing after 30 years, this novel is an important addition to the history of twentieth-century African American literature. Highly recommended."—Library Journal [starred review]

"Clarence Major's All-Night Visitors may be best described as a black Tropic of Cancer, moving as it does from one peccadillo to the next without failing to give the lead character a full life at the same time."—Greg Tate, Village Voice Literary Supplement

"Major's wildly careening first-person narrative [is] reminiscent of both Richard Wright and Henry Miller. . . . [The author's] depiction of his hero's supercharged states of mind and all but cosmic lovemaking echoes the social convulsions of the 1960s, and it is as raw and compelling now as it was then."—Booklist

"Clarence Major has a remarkable mind and the talent to match." —Toni Morrison

"[This novel] is about the black man at home with his body . . . All-Night Visitors is at the forefront of the black revival—the new millennium for black art."—Ishmael Reed

Clarence Major is Professor of English at the University of California, Davis. Among his numerous novels are Such Was the Season and Dirty Bird Blues. He is also the author of several works of nonfiction and volumes of poetry, including National Book Award-finalist Configurations. Bernard W. Bell is Professor of English at Penn State University. He is the author of The Afro-American Novel and Its Tradition. Richard Yarborough is Associate Professor of English and Director of the Center for African American Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles.




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