Five-Carat Soul

Starred review from July 24, 2017
Humming with invention and energy, the stories collected in McBride’s first fiction book since his National Book Award–winning The Good Lord Bird again affirm his storytelling gifts. In the opening story, “The Under Graham Railroad Box Car Set,” vintage toy dealer Leo Banskoff gets a lead on a priceless collectible: the long-lost train set made for Robert E. Lee’s son Graham by one of Smith & Wesson’s founders. In one of several surprises that upend his assumptions about value, Banskoff prepares for fierce negotiation but finds that the train’s impoverished, devoutly evangelical owner wants to give it away. In “The Fish Man Angel,” a weary President Lincoln makes a late-night visit to his dead son Willie’s horse, weeping alone before overhearing words that change history. In “The Christmas Dance,” a Ph.D. candidate begs two of the only surviving members of the African-American Ninety-Second Infantry Division to describe its role in a senselessly bloody World War II encounter; though their reluctance jeopardizes his thesis, ultimately the men—unlike the government they served—honor even unspoken promises. One of two groups of linked stories reimagines the animal world, while the other visits a gritty neighborhood of Uniontown, Penn., during the Vietnam War as teenagers grapple with limitation and longing. McBride adopts a variety of dictions without losing his own distinctively supple, musical voice; as identities shift, “truths” are challenged, and justice is done or, more often, subverted.

Starred review from January 22, 2018
Four talented actors bring to life the zany characters in the excellent audio edition of McBride’s story collection. In “The Under Graham Railroad Box Car Set,” Arthur Morey conveys the apoplectic confusion of an antique toy salesman when a poor black preacher offers to gift him a train set—believed to have belonged to Robert E. Lee—that he knows is worth millions. In “The Five-Carat Soul Bottom Bone Band,” Nile Bullock perfectly captures the rhythmic speech of Butter, one of a group of teenaged boys whose band practices above a Chinese restaurant in a predominantly African-American town called The Bottom. Prentice Onayemi is equally masterly in the other stories about young men stuck at the bottom of society. Veteran voice actor Dominic Hoffman gives a consummate performance as the zoo animals who communicate telepathically with each other and with humans in the wonderful, whimsical, and surprising “Mr. P and the Wind.” This is one of the best audiobooks of 2017. A Riverhead hardcover.