Beacon Press
February 2016
On Sale: January 26, 2016
240 pages ISBN: 0807057525 EAN: 9780807057520 Kindle: B00X2E2MAM Hardcover / e-Book Add to Wish List
A coming-of-age memoir about a young boy in rural
Arkansas who searches for himself and his distant father
through soul music
Growing up in rural Arkansas,
young Rashod Ollison turned to music to make sense of his
life. The dysfunction, sadness, and steely resilience of his
family and neighbors was reflected in the R&B songs that
played on 45s in smoky rooms.
Steeped in the sounds,
the smells, the salty language of rural Arkansas in the
1980s, Soul Serenade is the memoir of a pop music
critic whose love for soul music was fostered by his father,
Raymond. Drafted into the Vietnam War as a teenager, Raymond
returned a changed man, “dead on the inside.” After his
parents’ volatile marriage ended in divorce, Rashod was
haunted by the memory of his itinerant father and his mama’s
long forgotten “sunshine smile.” For six-year-old Rashod,
his father’s record collection—the music of Aretha Franklin,
Bobby Womack, Al Green, and others—provided solace,
coherence, and escape.
Moving nine times during his
childhood, Rashod constantly adjusted to new schools and
homes with his two sisters, Dusa and Reagan, and his mother,
Dianne. Resilient and tough, while also being distant and
punitive, she worked multiple jobs, striving “to make ends
wave at each other if they couldn’t meet.” He spent time
with his acerbic mother’s mother, Mama Teacake, and her
family’s living-out-loud ways, which clashed with his
father’s family—religious, discreet, and appropriate—where
Rashod gravitated to Big Mama and Paw Paw, his father’s
parents.
Becoming aware of his same-sex attraction,
Rashod felt further isolated and alone but was encouraged by
mentors in the community who fostered his intelligence and
talent. He became transformed through discovering the
writing of Toni Morrison, Alice Walker, Nikki Giovanni, and
other literary greats, and these books, along with the
soulful sounds of the 1970s and 80s, enabled him to thrive
in spite of the instability and harshness of his
childhood.
In textured and evocative language, and
peppered with unexpected humor, Soul Serenade is an
original and captivating coming-of-age story set to an
original beat.