WIN $150 GIFT VOUCHERS: ALADDIN'S GOLD

Close Notification

Your cart does not contain any items

Mosquito

Gayl Jones

$49.99

Paperback

Not in-store but you can order this
How long will it take?

QTY:

English
Beacon Press
29 March 2022
"From the highly acclaimed author of Corregidora and The Healing-a rare and unforgettable journey set along the US-Mexico border about identity, immigration, and ""the new underground railroad.""

""Jones's great achievement is to reckon with both history and interiority, and to collapse the boundary between them.""-Anna Wiener, The New Yorker

First discovered and edited by Toni Morrison, Gayl Jones has been described as one of the great literary writers of the 20th century. In Mosquito, she examines the US-Mexico border crisis through the eyes of Sojourner Nadine Jane Johnson, an African American truck driver known as Mosquito. Her journey beings after discovering a stowaway who nearly gives birth in the back of her truck, sparking her accidental and yet growing involvement in ""the new underground railroad,"" a sanctuary movement for Mexican immigrants.

As Mosquito's understanding of the immigrants's need to forge new lives and identities deepens, so too does Mosquito's romance with Ray, a gentle revolutionary, philosopher, and, perhaps, a priest. Along the road, Mosquito introduces us to Delgadina, a Chicana bartender who fries cactus, writes haunting stories, and studies to become a detective; Monkey Bread, a childhood pal who is, improbably, assistant to a blonde star in Hollywood; Maria, the stowaway who names her baby Journal, a misspelled tribute to her unwitting benefactor Sojourner; and many more."
By:  
Imprint:   Beacon Press
Country of Publication:   United States
Dimensions:   Height: 216mm,  Width: 140mm, 
Weight:   369g
ISBN:   9780807006627
ISBN 10:   0807006629
Pages:   624
Publication Date:  
Audience:   General/trade ,  ELT Advanced
Format:   Paperback
Publisher's Status:   Active

Gayl Jones was born in Kentucky in 1949. She attended Connecticut College and Brown University, and has taught at Wellesley College and the University of Michigan. Her landmark books include Corregidora, Eva's Man, The Healing (a National Book Award finalist and New York Times Notable Book of the Year), Palmares (a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in fiction), and most recently, The Birdcatcher (National Book Award finalist).

Reviews for Mosquito

If you're acquainted with the lyrical tug of Alice Walker's The Color Purple, then you'll find something familiar and compelling about the narrative voice in Gayl Jones's newest novel, Mosquito. . . . Mosquito's voice is melodic, direct, and so conversational that it hooks us immediately and makes us surrender fully to the narrative. . . . To be sure, these observations crackle with wit and a joyful, almost child-like candor.--Quinn Eli, Philadelphia Inquirer Gayl Jones is the black writer we all want to be when we grow up . . . Mosquito is Gayl Jones unbound, but certainly not untethered nor without her still prodigious storehouses of language, craft, and storytelling prowess. --Greg Tate, Voice Literary Supplement Mosquito will amuse and confuse and instruct and pique and exhaust you. Sometimes the anecdotes are so good you call up friends to share them. There are a hundred times you want to shout, 'Right on!' --Sandra Scofield, Chicago Tribune Most apparent and most surprising, is Jones's sense of humor. When she's at her best, her sly, subversive wit echoes Ishmael Reed at his most sarcastic. --Jabari Asim, Washington Post Book World Undoubtedly a literary tour de force. --James A. Miller, Boston Globe


See Inside

See Also