Jeffery Renard Allen is the author of two collections of poetry, Stellar Places (2007) and Harbors and Spirits (1999), and three works of fiction, the widely celebrated novel, Rails Under My Back (2000), which won The Chicago Tribune's Heartland Prize for Fiction, the story collection Holding Pattern (2008), which won the Ernest J. Gaines Award for Literary Excellence, and the novel Song of the Shank (2014), a New York Times Notable Book of the Year. His other awards include a support grant from Creative Capital, The Chicago Public Library's Twenty-first Century Award, a Recognition for Pioneering Achievements in Fiction from the African American Literature and Culture Association, the 2003 Charles Angoff award for fiction from The Literary Review, and special citations from the Society for Midlands Authors and the Zora Neale Hurston/Richard Wright Foundation. He has been a fellow at The Dorothy L. and Lewis B. Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers at The New York Public Library, a John Farrar Fellow in Fiction at the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference, and a Walter E. Dakins Fellow in Fiction at the Sewanee Writers' Conference.
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Rails Under My BackA Novel
The train arrived with a smell of hot metal. Not the one she needed. Framed in the windows, the frozen-forward faces of the passengers. But they different in New York, Lucifer says. Here, the seats face forward overlooking the tracks—as if you were the conductor, you think—but there, you face the other passengers, keep yo eyes to yoself. Yes, you think, looking but not seeing, eyes turned away, curving and swerving with the tracks. The conductor shouted, STANDING PASSENGERS, PLEASE DO NOT LEAN ON THE DOORS. Cause you might fall out of the doors, like teeth spilling from a mouth. The train drew off.
Rails Under My Back:A Novel -
Rails Under My BackA Novel
Yall want this bread, yall better come get it. Damn if I’m gon chase you. The man held up two stubs of white bread. A gorilla head man with bear feet. What kind of animal? His body enveloped a leather chair in a shapeless mass of flabby flesh, a collapsed parachute. A black-tipped (rubber) brown (wood) cane slanted across his body, the curved head looping the circle of his lap. Hurry up, too. I gotta get back to the desk. The doves settled light onto the limbs of his thumbs. The man’s bowed head raised quickly, as if he’d been kicked in the chin. Yes, his eyes had caught the shadow of Hatch’s approaching shoes.
Rails Under My Back:A Novel -
Rails Under My BackA Novel
Daddy loved them dogs. Redman and Blackjack. What we ate, they ate. Never had a cold meal. Followed him everywhere, he just talkin away and they beside him, noddin they heads and waggin they tails. They be the first at the do when a guest come. Gon way from this door, Red. This caller ain’t fer you. And what you, Blackman, his shader? They could howl so, like to scare off any thang come creepin long in the night. Walk us to school, one long each side a us. And be waitin outside the schoolhouse to walk us back. And them dogs could sniff out the devil down in the deepest hell. When the huntin be good, Redman and Blackjack liked to rob the woods of all coon, possum, and rabbit.
Rails Under My Back:A Novel
"[A] masterly new novel. . . . It sagely explores themes of religion, class, art and genius, and introduces elements of magic realism . . . resulting in the kind of imaginative work only a prodigiously gifted risk-taker could produce." —The New York Times Book Review [on Song of the Shank]
"[An] explosive vanguard novel . . . a chilling orphic drama full of polyrhythmic shakers and shells. . . . A landmark of modern African-American literature. . . . Reading through this sagacious volume is like stumbling on a crooked monument covered in celestial carvings, something that aims for the stars and ends up reconfiguring constellations." —The Atlanta Journal-Constitution [on Song of the Shank]
"Each tale is electric with the rising tension that proceeds stormy weather. . . . Allen's stories pull you down into the misery of the daily hustle and spit you out on the lonely crossroads between reality and myth, where the archetypes roam and trust is but a dream." —Booklist, starred review [on Holding Pattern]
Selected Works
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