Andrew Lewis Conn

This was a GOOD book, I quite enjoyed it. It was a First Reads win, which is a very cool program. The author writes well, much better than the last book I finished. Always happy when an author's vocabulary is better than mine! I was attracted by a comparison in the blurbs to Doctorow's Ragtime which I recently finished and really liked, and I think it does live up to it. The twin heroes were majestically flawed, encounters with actual historical figures, life in NYC just prior to the Crash of 1929, early Hollywood, race relations, society, technology and culture on the cusp of change, and O! a trip to Africa to boot. Two of them actually. There were some sexually graphic scenes, hetero and homosexual both, so if it isn't your cup of tea, be forewarned. This is a worthy read!!… (mehr)

In O, Africa! we follow the Grand brothers on their trip to Africa, where they will pioneer film making in the dark continent. Twin brothers, the Grands are opposite in many respects, but both find and suffer the consequences of love in their journeys at home and abroad. The book is most compelling when the brothers are in Africa interacting with the Malwiki, a tribe who are unaccustomed to acting, movie technology and the world outside their own. It is simultaneously fascinating and unsettling to watch the tribe be irrevocably changed by the brothers and their actions, and in turn, to see how the Malwiki change the brothers in their lives after Africa. I only wish the second half of the novel was as gripping as the first.… (mehr)