John Woman - BookWyrm

mp3 cd, 1 pages

Published Sept. 4, 2018 by Blackstone Audio.

ISBN:: 978-1-9825-4405-8

(2 reviews)

At twelve years old, Cornelius, the son of an Italian-American woman and an older black man from Mississippi named Herman, secretly takes over his father's job at a silent film theater in New York's East Village. Five years later, as Herman lives out his last days, he shares his wisdom with his son, explaining that the person who controls the narrative of history controls their own fate. After his father dies and his mother disappears, Cornelius sets about reinventing himself--as Professor John Woman, a man who will spread Herman's teachings into the classrooms of his unorthodox southwestern university and beyond. But there are other individuals who are attempting to influence the narrative of John Woman, and who might know something about the facts of his hidden past.

6 editions

franksbooks reviewed John Woman by Walter Mosley

Review of 'John Woman' on 'Goodreads'

3 stars

John Woman is a man who knows everything and nothing about history while striving about whether to be in control of his present or if it should be just abandoned to fate.
Along the way, John Woman the book introduces a wide range of philosophical ideas to help the reader think more broadly about the self, its' history and how that helps us manage our present relationships.
As a philosophical challenge Mosley, through the flawed hero who is both a history professor and not one – Woman is as good a trope as any to illustrate the complications inherent in all of us, mostly succeeds in making us consider things we did or that happened to us in the past and how much they matter now that we are in the present.
In the end all the effort made to focus on the interpretation of our own history feels pointless, …

John Woman is a man who knows everything and nothing about history while striving about whether to be in control of his present or if it should be just abandoned to fate.
Along the way, John Woman the book introduces a wide range of philosophical ideas to help the reader think more broadly about the self, its' history and how that helps us manage our present relationships.
As a philosophical challenge Mosley, through the flawed hero who is both a history professor and not one – Woman is as good a trope as any to illustrate the complications inherent in all of us, mostly succeeds in making us consider things we did or that happened to us in the past and how much they matter now that we are in the present.
In the end all the effort made to focus on the interpretation of our own history feels pointless, because Woman discovers that the control we have over our decisions is limited due to fate and other invisible hands – such as the ‘platinum’ thread interwoven throughout and its pandering to conspiracy theories such as those levelled against Soros in the real world.

Baltipink reviewed John Woman by Walter Mosley

Review of 'John Woman' on 'Goodreads'

4 stars

I wasn't sure about this book during the first part, but it turned out to be exactly what I needed to read right now. I won't attempt to explain the story. It contains too much to explain as a simple narrative. It's like a religious text for ppl lacking religion. Something to hang on to while also letting it all go. Going forward backwards. Mosley never ceases to surprise me.