A Word from the Writer
When beset by a thousand blazes…there’s a panicked reaction to think any liquid will do. We know that to be untrue. Putting out fires with gasoline is a helluva lot of work. When I wrote The Brothers Jetstream: Leviathan my soul was pointed at a spirit of fun and rediscovery, kind of like Miles Davis’s Birth of the Cool in book form, not that I pretend to stand anywhere near the continent, let alone vicinity, of Miles’s genius. I just share his sense of fun. Miles knew how to guide us through fires with sound without letting us stampede one another. The Brothers Jetstream tried to learn from that and blow.
Jump five years later: fires in the trash can, fires in the street, fires in the dented pot, fires when we meet. The United States’ psychoses are at full fever. Injustice. Brutality. Collusion. Incompetence. Covid. Things are cloudy, loud, hot and scary for everybody.
Yes, the future feels very uncertain, but feelings are like musical notes; they flow, merge, go choral, skip beats, or change the entire tempo of inner sight. The future is jazz from a powerful horn. The note of hope remains.
That’s where the soul of AFRO PUFFS ARE THE ANTENNAE OF THE UNIVERSE led me. This book’s a sequel but it’s not “Hey, let’s see what the characters are doing now” and leave it at that. It’s What Are We Gonna Do Now? How’re we putting out fires, how’re we living? The first book was the brothers. This one’s all about the sisters. And we know sistas put in the work.
AFRO PUFFS is Minnie Riperton showing Miles how to take a note to meet its higher self. It’s the Brides of Funkenstein harmonizing us out of our seats and into the hell yeah of something bold. There was never a doubt that this book was gonna have the title it has and be precisely what it is: fun, rough-and-tumble, grinning outward just a tiny bit behind the beat. And there was never a doubt that I was gonna ask you to run in the sand under a bright sun with me. Two reasons: sand’s hella fun and—when we’re done playing with it—it’s great at dousing fires.
Welcome to your 2020 crew. ~ ZZC
LOOK FOR IT EVERYWHERE BOOKS ARE SOLD, DECEMBER 1, 2020
