Lee Cotton is born to a black mother in a little Delta town in the 1950s, but has white skin. He grows up amid violent confrontation between white supremacists and the civil rights movement. Aged 16, he is beaten to death by the Ku Klux Klan. At this stage in the book, 50 pages in, it is natural for the reader to assume that the narrative will centre on issues of racism. It is especially natural, considering that the author is a white British man. Why else would he choose so alien a backdrop, if he were not intent on exploring the issues peculiar to that time and place?
It is therefore easy to be confused by this book when the protagonist subsequently goes to heaven, discovers the meaning of life, forgets it, returns to earth, joins the army, becomes a woman and watches his white skin turn black.
If this were a serious study of racist issues, it would be a disgrace.
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