Red Now and Laters Hardcover - 2014

Go deep into the heart of 1980s Texan Creole culture in this vivid, visceral novel about a gifted boy who comes of age at the crossroads of privilege and poverty, life and death.

Meet Ti John, a young boy growing up in Houston in the 1980s, the decade of Reaganomics, disco music, and the candy of choiceâÈ'red Now and Laters. Raised in a Black Creole family by a voodoo-practicing father and strict Catholic mother, he is blessed with a special gift: spiritual healing. On a regular basis, a deceased ancestor visits Ti John, announcing himself with the smell of smoke and serving as a spiritual guide.

But the community Ti John belongs to isnâÈçt easy. It turned from white and middle class to black and poor after the oil bubble burst in the 1960s, and the flood of 1977 sealed its current fate as a ghetto. Ti John struggles to remain an ordinary kid, but even with a rodeo-star father he idolizes, an overprotective mother who forbids him to play with the neighborhood âÈêhoodlums,âÈë and the help of supernatural guides, nothing can shield Ti John from the rough side of inner-city life. He witnesses violence and death, gets his heart broken by girls, feels the anger of his own embittered father, struggles to live up to his motherâÈçs middle-class aspirationsâÈ'all while trying to become the man heâÈçs expected to be. Will Ti John fall prey to the bad side of lifeâÈ'or will he recognize and hold on to the good?

Multilayered and multigenerational, this tremendous literary debut breathes new life into the coming-of-age novel. Red Now and Laters is a poignant and uniquely American story, as memorable and flavorful as the candy itself.

Details

• Title Red Now and Laters
• Author Marcus J. Guillory
• Binding Hardcover
• Pages 338
• Volumes 1
• Language ENG
• Publisher Atria Books, Qf12
• Date 2014-03-11
• ISBN 9781451699111 / 1451699115
• Weight 1.1 lbs (0.50 kg)
• Dimensions 9.1 x 6.2 x 1.2 in (23.11 x 15.75 x 3.05 cm)
• Library of Congress subjects Domestic fiction, Houston (Tex.)
• Library of Congress Catalog Number 2013000901
• Dewey Decimal Code FIC

Red Now and Laters is literary Zydeco: rolling, captivating, filled with sweet joy yet informed by sorrow. This is everything a debut novel should be: the call of a distinctive new voice staking claim to undiscovered territory. Marcus Guillory has created a heartfelt tribute to the beauty of Creole culture."