The Talented Ribkins - Hardcover

Ladee Hubbard

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1612196365 ISBN 13: 9781612196367

Publisher: Melville House Publishing, 2017

Synopsis

2016 winner of the Rona Jaffe Foundation Writer's Award and riffing off W.E.B. Du Bois' famous essay, this marvelously inventive novel tells the story of Johnny Ribkins, a 72-year old African-American antiques dealer from Florida who was born with a unique talent.

At 72, Johnny Ribkins shouldn't have such problems: He's got one week to come up with the money he stole from his mobster boss or it's curtains.

Luckily, Johnny comes from an African-American family that has super powers. Well… sort of super powers. His father, for example, could see in the dark. His brother could scale walls. His cousin spits fire, and Johnny himself can make precise maps of any space you name, whether he's been there or not.

In the old days, the Ribkins tried to apply their gifts to the civil rights effort. But disappointed at how that turned out, Johnny and his brother used their talents to stage a series of daring cat-burglar robberies. After his brother died of a drug overdose, though, Johnny blamed himself, and stashed their money in hiding spots all over Florida and tried to forget it.

In need of that money decades later, with his boss's goons tailing him, Johnny drives to his brother's old place to dig up his first stash and makes a remarkable discovery - his brother's widow has found the money and spent it. What's more, Johnny's brother had a daughter he didn't know about. Her gift? She can catch cans if you throw them at her head. No matter how many, no matter how fast.

The old man and the teenaged girl become an unlikely duo as Johnny is chased by his bosses goons from stash to stash across Florida, in what is, in more ways than one, a hilarious and moving race against time, in one of the most inventive and original debuts ever.

About this title

About the Author

Ladee Hubbard received a BA in English from Princeton University where she wrote a creative thesis under the direction of Toni Morrison. She completed an MFA in Dramatic Writing at New York University and a PhD in Folklore and Mythology at UCLA. She also received an MFA in Creative Writing at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 2014, where she worked with Lorrie Moore, Jesse Lee Kercheval and Judith Mitchell. Hubbard is the winner of the Rona Jaffe Foundation Writer's Award, the Faulkner-Wisdom Short Story Award, and taken third place in the Lorian Hemingway Short Story Award and been nominated for a Pushcart Prize.

Edition details

• Publisher: Melville House Publishing
• Publication date: 2017
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1612196365
• ISBN 13: 9781612196367
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 320