Oreo - Softcover

Ross, Fran; Senna, Danzy; Mullen, Harryette

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0811223221 ISBN 13: 9780811223225

Publisher: New Directions, 2015

Oreo is raised by her maternal grandparents in Philadelphia. Her black mother tours with a theatrical troupe, and her Jewish deadbeat dad disappeared when she was an infant, leaving behind a mysterious note that triggers her quest to find him. What ensues is a playful, modernized parody of the classical odyssey of Theseus with a feminist twist, immersed in seventies pop culture, and mixing standard English, black vernacular, and Yiddish with wisecracking aplomb. Oreo, our young hero, navigates the labyrinth of sound studios and brothels and subway tunnels in Manhattan, seeking to claim her birthright while unwittingly experiencing and triggering a mythic journey of self-discovery like no other.

Review:

Hilarious, touching and a future classic.

A brilliant and biting satire, a feminist picaresque, absurd, unsettling, and hilarious ... Ross' novel, with its Joycean language games and keen social critique, is as playful as it is profound. Criminally overlooked. A knockout.

The novel will endure, greeting each new generation of readers with its continuing relevance.--Amanda Sarasien

Hilariously offbeat.

This is a novel that refuses to be categorized or tamed in any way.

This novel has wings.--Dwight Garner

Setting out from her black household in Philadelphia to find her deadbeat Jewish father in New York, [Oreo] proceeds through one of the funniest journeys ever, amid a whirlwind of wisecracks in a churning mix of Yiddish, black vernacular, and every sort of English.--Danielle Dutton

What a rollicking little masterpiece this book is, truly one of the most delightful, hilarious, intelligent novels I've stumbled across in recent years, a wholly original work written in a wonderful mashed-up language that mixes high academic prose, black slang and Yiddish to great effect. I must have laughed out loud a hundred times, and it's a short book, just over 200 pages, which averages out to one booming gut-laugh every other page.--Paul Auster

With its mix of vernacular dialects, bilingual and ethnic humor, inside jokes, neologisms, verbal quirks, and linguistic oddities, Ross's novel dazzles...--Harryette Mullen

Uproariously funny...criminally neglected.--Stephen Sparks

Book Description:

A pioneering, dazzling satire about a biracial black girl from Philadelphia searching for her Jewish father in New York City.

• Publisher: New Directions
• Publication date: 2015
• ISBN 10: 0811223221
• ISBN 13: 9780811223225
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 240