Imagine This

Praise for Maxine Clair's Rattlebone: "Strong, melodic, and honest...[Clair's] characters are lush and real...We need stories like these to replenish us." --Terry McMillan "Extraordinary...Each skillful plot twist, each new wonderful character has the effect of a sip of literary love potion." --The New York Times Book Review "Clair consistently attains the poetry organic to everyday speech...[Rattlebone is] told in a style that is memorable for its ability to shift tones and to capture, in rich and controlled language, new levels of consciousness." --The Washington Post "Lovely, lyrical and full of charm...Clair's first work of fiction is as much a record of a gentler era as it is a sensitive and wise coming-of-age story." --San Francisco Chronicle "Each of [Rattlebone's] related stories contains insight and intensity on its own; as a group they successfully create the African- American 1950s Kansas City (Kans.) community of the title as an insular world replete with detail and texture... Even greater than the sum of its admirable parts." --Kirkus Reviews Praise for Maxine Clair's October Suite: "[October Suite] tells a simple story in a sweetly straightforward, lyrical style that builds a surprising amount of power as it moves quietly along... Clair tells her story with a pitch-perfect feel for the time and the people African-Americans just beginning to sense the rising tide of the civil rights revolution and her character drawing is uncannily exact." --Publishers Weekly "Poet and short-story writer [Maxine] Clair (Rattlebone) has skillfully brought lyricism and word-play to [October Suite], a family saga filled with secrets, redemption, and rivalry...Clair's descriptions give even the most ordinary objects a musical feel, and her relaxed prose style gives the reader a chance to discover all the layers of her complex and very real characters. A satisfying read; recommended for all fiction collections." --Library Journal "Told with a quiet drama, enriched by period details and well-developed characters who act with realistic compassion and cruelty. An absorbing look at a woman coming to terms with her past and shaping a better future." --Booklist "Told in a melody all its own, this story touches many lovely and unexpected notes. October Brown chooses to reinvent herself, only to inadvertently discover herself, and the final chord of accepting herself (and others) reverberates poignantly." --Elizabeth Strout "October Brown is a heroine who will break and mend your heart. Maxine Clair has written a beautifully imagined novel that pulses with all the colors and sounds of the lives we live." --Marita Golden