A Different Drummer [Paperback]

The stunning, thought-provoking first novel by a lost giant of American literature (The New Yorker)

June, 1957. One hot afternoon in the backwaters of the Deep South, a young black farmer named Tucker Caliban salts his fields, shoots his horse, burns his house, and heads north with his wife and child. His departure sets off an exodus of the state’s entire black population, throwing the established order into brilliant disarray. Told from the points of view of the white residents who remained, A Different Drummerstands, decades after its first publication in 1962, as an extraordinary and prescient triumph of satire and spirit.“[A] lost giant of American literature. . . . Brilliant.” —The New Yorker

A work of deep originality and superior craftsmanship whose treatment of racial politics resists ideological classification. . . . A potent brew of mythology, gossip, history, political argument and family drama. . . . A Different Drummeris animated by a force so immense, and fed by so much history, that it transcends encapsulation.  —The Wall Street Journal

“This fierce and brilliant novel is written with sympathy as well as sorrow. It’s a myth packed with real-world resonance.” —The Guardian
 
“Radical and important.” —Financial Times
 
“Kelley blended fantasy and fact to construct an alternative world whose sweep and complexity drew comparisons to James Joyce and William Faulkner.” —TheNew York Times
 
“A rare first novel; dynamic, imaginative, and accomplished.” —Chicago Sunday Tribune

“Powerful. . . . Unflinching. . . . A gift to literature.” —The Observer

“So brilliant is this initial novel that ol³2