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The Unicorn Woman

The Pulitzer Prize Finalist for 2025
By Gayl Jones
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Brief Description
This extraordinary new novel from Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award finalist Gayl Jones follows the witty but perplexing army veteran Buddy Ray Guy as he embodies the fate of Black soldiers who return, not to glory, but to their Jim Crow communities. A cook and... Read More
Format: Paperback / softback
$3799
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Set in the American South of the early 50s, The Unicorn Woman is a riveting imagining of
hope, frustration, and imagination from of the most powerful voices in American literature.

Book Hero Magic formatted this description to make it easier to read. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! Description

This extraordinary new novel from Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award finalist Gayl Jones follows the witty but perplexing army veteran Buddy Ray Guy as he embodies the fate of Black soldiers who return, not to glory, but to their Jim Crow communities.

A cook and tractor repairman, Buddy was known as Budweiser to his army pals because he's a wise guy. But underneath that surface, he is a true self-educated intellectual and a classic seeker: looking for religion, looking for meaning, looking for love.

His odyssey takes him not only from his hometown of Lexington, Kentucky to Memphis, Tennessee, but back into his own memories. He recalls his love affairs in post-war France and his encounters with a dazzling array of almost mythical characters: circus barkers, topiary trimmers, landladies who provide shelter and plenty of advice for their all-Black clientele, proto feminists, bigots, andβ€”most unforgettablyβ€”the Unicorn Woman herself.

With her inimitable eye for beauty, tragedy, and humour, Jones offers a rich, intriguing exploration of the Black imagination in a time and place of frustration, disappointment, and spiritual hope.

Book Details

INFORMATION

ISBN: 9780349016924

Publisher: Little, Brown Book Group

Format: Paperback / softback

Date Published: 20 August 2024

Country: United Kingdom

Imprint: Virago Press Ltd

Audience: General / adult

DIMENSIONS

Spine width: 16.0mm

Width: 134.0mm

Height: 214.0mm

Weight: 200g

Pages: 192

Collections

Fiction Gayl Jones General Fiction Literary Fiction

About the Author

Gayl Jones was born in Kentucky in 1949. She attended Connecticut College and Brown University and has taught at Wellesley and the University of Michigan. Her books include Corregidora (1975), Eva's Man (1976), The Healing (1998), which was a National Book Award finalist, Palmares (2021), which was shortlisted for the Pulitzer Prize in fiction and longlisted for the Rathbones Folio Prize, and The Birdcatcher (2022), which was also a National Book Award Finalist.

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  • Corregidora
    No novel about any Black woman could ever be the same after this' TONI MORRISON I dreamed with my eyes open. All the Corregidora women with narrow waists and high cheekbones and wide hips. All the Corregidora women dancing. Blues singer Ursa is consumed by her hatred of Corregidora, the nineteenth-century slave master who fathered both her mother and grandmother....
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  • The Unicorn Woman
    A literary giant TAYARI JONES A richly imaginative and moving new novel from the Pulitzer finalist and acclaimed author of Corregidora A cook and tractor repairman, Buddy was known as Budweiser to his army pals because he's a wise guy. But underneath that surface, he's a man on a quest: looking for religion, looking for meaning, looking for love. Returning...
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  • Butter
    'A literary giant, and one of my absolute favourite writers' - Tayari Jones, author of An American Marriage 'Gayl Jones is a literary legend' - Yara Rodrigues Fowler, author of There Are More Things 'Her prose is intricate, mesmerizing, and endlessly inventive and subversive' - Deesha Philyaw, author of The Secret Lives of Church Ladies Gayl Jones's long career began...
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  • Palmares
    A 2022 PULITZER PRIZE FINALIST LONGLISTED FOR THE RATHBONES FOLIO PRIZE 'A once-in-a-lifetime work of literature, the kind that changes your understanding of the world' - Yara Rodriguez Fowler, Guardian 'Astonishingly rich in character and incident, filled with magic and mystery' - Sunday Times 'Intricate, mesmerizing and endlessly inventive and subversive' - Deesha Philyaw, author of The Secret Lives of...
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