Keene’s collection consists of several stories which seek to tell the unspoken history of various figures whom history has failed to grant a voice. In a sense this is a highly Derridean project: an ambition to write in the margin of the authorised version of the western cannon. Unsurprisingly, many of these voices are of African descent, some of them slaves, although this is not always the case. Keene’s remit is broad, stretching from the discovery of Manhattan to twentieth century Africa. Along the way, the writer’s stories occur in Haiti and Brazil as well as the United States. Many of the stories relate to recognisable historical or fictional characters (Huckleberry Finn, Mário de Andrade, Miss La La), rooting the text with a historical authenticity which at the same time playfully questions that very authenticity. The stories that are set around the time of the US Civil war, a war that often seems to have been brushed under the carpet, felt particularly enlightening. On the whole Keene writes with a fluid, natural prose style, luring the reader in to his unlikely tales. A Haitian girl who draws her apocalyptic visions and in so doing perhaps brings them to life. A black servant who ends up participating in the balloon reconnaissance division of the Unionist army. The leader of a Brazilian quilombo. (One imagines Keene is aware of how this word has entered the South American lexicon.) The text never fails to surprise and at the same time succeeds in its radical mission to rewrite the reader’s understanding of what “history” really is, a considerable fictional achievement.
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