Ten Indians: A novel - Hardcover

Bell, Madison Smartt

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0679442464 ISBN 13: 9780679442462

Publisher: Pantheon, 1996

Synopsis

From the Haiti of 200 years ago in his most recent, highly acclaimed novel, All Souls' Rising, Bell returns to our own moment, to the racial lines that have riven contemporary America. An edgy, powerful, deeply affecting story of possibility, Ten Indians tells the fast-paced, complex tale of a man who opens a Tae Kwon Do school in a black neighborhood in inner-city Baltimore--and finds himself compelled to enter the lives of his students when the brutality of streets spills into his life.

About this title

From Booklist:

Bell is a powerhouse. Just a year after the release of All Souls' Rising a novel about Haiti that landed him on Granta's "Best Young American Novelists" list--he's back with a new, very lean and mean novel much in keeping with his signature themes. Bell, whose inner compass always points to the highest concentration of tension, is one of the few white writers to consistently explore relationships between whites and blacks both socially and as individuals. Here he sets up a dramatic dynamic between Devlin, a white psychologist specializing in the treatment of children, and a group of young black men and women living in the projects in Baltimore. Married and the father of a 17-year-old daughter, Devlin is both savvy and rash and, we suspect, self-destructive and possibly worse. Weary of his privileged clients, he decides to open a tae kwon do school in a dangerous inner-city neighborhood. Initially, his school is a great success. Devlin tells his heavily armed, drug-dealing, but, at heart, sweet-natured students to treat the school as a sanctuary, a "place where things make sense." But discipline and agility are no match for firepower, and Devlin is in way over his head. This is a troubling and profoundly ambivalent drama about violence and the urge to do good that reminds readers, sadly, that there are no simple, elegant answers to complicated, messy problems. Donna Seaman

From Library Journal:

Bell, recently identified by Granta as one of the 20 best young American novelists, here shows why. Multiple narrators cast different shadows on the story of Mike Devlin, a white, middle-class psychologist whose life is in crisis (whether he knows it or not), who sets up a Tae Kwan Do academy in a black, inner-city neighborhood (in crisis of its own) in Baltimore. The concept of "getting involved" applies in a metaphysical as well as practical sense. "Boundary crossing" also takes on multiple meanings, especially as Michelle, Devlin's teenage daughter, becomes increasingly interested in the academy and the neighborhood. Deliberately understated, the book turns the nice trick of holding the reader despite the fact that the outcome is forecast at the beginning. Readers introduced to Bell with the highly praised All Souls' Rising (LJ 10/1/95), a historical novel of Haitian independence, will find Ten Indians quite different. But the martial arts theme and inner-city setting are in fact much more typical of his oeuvre. Highly recommended for all collections.
-?Robert E. Brown, Onondaga Cty. P.L., Syracuse, N.Y.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Pantheon
• Publication date: 1996
• ISBN 10: 0679442464
• ISBN 13: 9780679442462
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 264