Oreo
Fran Ross; Harryette Mullen, fwd.

Northeastern Library of Black Literature
Northeastern University Press
University Press of New England

2000 • 224 pp.
Fiction / African-American Studies / Women's Studies

$22.95 Paper, 978-1-55553-464-6





"Fran Ross has a witty way with words-Yiddish, black dialect, puns-and she strews them exuberantly throughout her episodic story, along with lists, tables, drawings, equations, menus ('Gefüllte Melonen') and Q-and-A exams." —Publishers Weekly

This uproariously funny satire about relations between African Americans and Jews is as fresh and outrageous today as when it was first published in 1974.

Born to a Jewish father and black mother who divorce before she is two, Oreo grows up in Philadelphia with her maternal grandparents while her mother tours with a theatrical troupe. Soon after puberty, Oreo heads for New York with a pack on her back to search for her father; but in the big city she discovers that there are dozens of Sam Schwartzes in the phone book, and Oreo's mission turns into a wickedly humorous picaresque quest. The ambitious and playful narrative challenges accepted notions of race, ethnicity, culture, and even the novelistic form itself.








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