Dirty Bird Blues

A quietly influential force in African American literature and art, Clarence Major makes his Penguin Classics debut with the twenty-fifth-anniversary edition of Dirty Bird Blues

Set in post-World War II Chicago and Omaha, the novel features Manfred Banks, a young, harmonica-blowing blues singer who is always writing music in his head. Torn between his friendships with fellow musicians and nightclub life and his responsibilities to his wife and child, along with the pressures of dealing with a racist America that assaults him at every turn, Manfred seeks easy answers in Dirty Bird (Old Crow whiskey) and in moving on. He moves to Omaha with hopes of better opportunities as a blue-collar worker, but the blues in his soul and the dreams in his mind keep bringing him back to face himself. After a nightmarish descent into his own depths, Manfred emerges with fresh awareness and possibility. Through Manfred, we witness and experience the process by which modern American English has been vitalized and strengthened by the poetry and the poignancy of the African-American experience. As Manfred struggles with the oppressive constraints of society and his private turmoil, his rich inner voice resonates with the blues.

Author: Clarence Major
Publisher: Penguin Group
Published: 02/08/2022
Pages: 384
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.60lbs
Size: 7.60h x 5.00w x 0.70d
ISBN13: 9780143136590
ISBN10: 0143136593
BISAC Categories:
- Fiction | Historical | General
- Fiction | Classics
- Fiction | African American & Black | General

About the Author
A painter, poet, novelist, and anthology editor, Clarence Major has written over ten volumes of poetry and seven works of fiction and edited two anthologies. He has been awarded a 2016 PEN Oakland/Reginald Lockett Lifetime Achievement Award, a 2015 Lifetime Achievement Award in the Fine Arts by the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation, a Fulbright Fellowship, a National Council on the Arts Fellowship, and two Pushcart Prizes, and was a National Book Award finalist. Major is a distinguished professor emeritus of twentieth century American literature at the University of California, Davis. He retired in 2007. The Essential Clarence Major was published in 2020.