whatever happened to interracial love by kathleen collins

OK, now backlight the two of them asleep in the big double bed with that blue-and-white comforter over them. And another soft one for the young woman standing by the stove killing roaches. Now let's have a nice soft gel on the young man composing his poems or reading at his worktable. And put a spot on those pillows made up to look like a couch. OK, now light that worktable with all those notebooks and papers and stuff. And a little one on that burlap night table. I want a spot on that big double bed that takes up most of the room. The light? They've got light up the butt! It's the tallest building on the block, facing nothin' but rooftops and sun. 'OK, it's a sixth-floor walk-up, three rooms in the front, bathtub in the kitchen, roaches on the walls, a cubbyhole of a john with a stained-glass window. Collins, who died in 1988 at the age of 46, was the pioneering filmmaker behind the nearly lost Losing Ground, which was unearthed just last year to much critical acclaim, and these stories, with their verve and vérité, confirm the remarkable aesthetic vision of their creator. Multiple reviewers have hailed Collins's incisive and original stories about black intellectuals, interracial relationships, and colorism as a revelation, and I can only agree. The story collection might be my most memorable reading experience of the year- in a year of very memorable reading experiences, including Alejandro Zambra's ingenious Multiple Choice and the reissue of Helen DeWitt's masterpiece The Last Samurai. Kathleen Collins's exceptional Whatever Happened to Interracial Love?, released Tuesday, fits both of these categories. And there are some, even rarer, whose words are so auspiciously timed, so painfully beautiful and true, that you can only be grateful to have happened upon them-and then tell your friends. There are some books that you immediately fall in love with.

Whatever happened to interracial love by kathleen collins