"It's hard to make a woman your wife when you've been humping
married women for most of your life."
~Big Daddy Kane
Married but Still Looking
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by Travis Hunter
Format: Hardcover, 256pp.
ISBN: 0375505695
Publisher: Random House, Incorporated
Pub. Date: May 2002
Reviewed by Kim Rose
This pensive musing from a rap legend neatly summarize the challenge faced by
Genesis Styles, an almost 30-year-old, ex-NBA 12th man aspirant and semi-decent
fiancιe. In fact, Married But Still Looking is a lot like a great hip-hop
album, weaving vulgar yet amusing realities out of complex and harsh histories.
It is an honest and multidimensional portrait of a self-centered player and his
entourage, framed by the crooked consequences of his own indiscretions. But be
warned: There ain't no half-stepping on this journey.
Married But Still Looking, (May 2002), is an appropriately ambiguous title
for a story that masterfully displays multiple interweaving plots. Readers
familiar with Travis Hunter's previous novel (The Hearts of Men, Strivers Row)
will recognize his decidedly male perspective, in the sadomasochist dramatics of
Genesis, the smooth operating protagonist. On the surface Genesis is a spoiled
and sexy womanizer, who prowls the streets of Atlanta with a shaky bank account,
a black book of yellow page proportions, and a penchant for O.P.P. But Hunter
digs deep into this player's past and skillfully develops Genesis as a
"guy's guy" with a soft side -- someone who is desperately swatting
off maturity and personal accountability with one hand, while valiantly
scrambling to gather his displaced nuclear family members with the other.
Married But Still Looking is a fast and appealing read, thanks in part to the
authentic characterization of Genesis, who is like every man and no man, all at
once. He articulates the thoughts you've heard uttered a million times by your
brother/father/cousin/husband/ homeboy/favorite MC. Yet his behavior is unlike
anything you'd care to associate with the men in your life. His struggle is
genuine and familiar, and yet his actions are unpredictable.
Ironically, Genesis, who seems incapable of fidelity to the lady in his life,
possesses a fierce loyalty to his best friend Prodigy Banks. In a shrewd and
entertaining move, author Hunter revisits Prodigy, the reformed, loose-zipper
from his first novel, The Hearts of Men. Prodigy is a welcome and fresh presence
for Hunter avoids a remix by picking up his life almost where The Hearts of Men
left off. The two men share a beautifully intense friendship that exudes true
brotherly love sans the sap. Their introspective and emotional interactions
validate Travis Hunter's voice (and his commitment to portraying honest black
male characters free of cardboard cutout caricatures) as an important
contributor to the new wave of novelists.
However when Hunter tells the female side of the story that Married But Still
Looking stalls. His dialogue for his female characters is straight out of the
BAP Handbook, and does little to enliven an already flimsy female supporting
cast.
In Married But Still Looking Travis Hunter convincingly
"pen-lashes" the proverbial sophomore jinx with this fresh and
engaging page-turner. He shines as a writer with his use of dead-on macho
posturing to breathe life into his male characters, and his
straight-to-the-point narration. He wastes no energy on conceiving ambitious
lyrical imagery and settings, and he doesn't need it. All you need to know about
Travis Hunter's Atlanta is that women drastically outnumber men. Hunter wraps up
his novel with a fitting climax that leaves each character examining exactly
what they have been looking for.
