White on Black on White

Like James Balwin?s Another Coutry, White on Black on White, Coleman Dowell?s last book, is about the collision of race and sex. Edgar Cayce, a black policeman, is the central figure of the novel. We read Cayce?s memoir - in fact written by the narrator who is white whilst Cayce is black, gay whislt Cayce is straight. Cayce himself approve of the narrator?s impersonation: ?there isn?t a lot I?d object to or change...? Which is not surprising since Dowell?s point is that the essence of black is given in its interdependence with the other (white) and vice versa. In White on Black on White, Coleman Dowell has written an ambitious novel whose brilliance resides in the perfect fit between formal innovations and what is being said.