Snakes
by Al Young

From the first page: "This is the story of MC: young, black, and his head full of music. Orphaned at an early age, he lives with his hardworking grandmother, Claude, who plays the numbers with the same passion that he plays his electric guitar…This novel is written with the rhythms and nuances of a delicate musical score." From University Review: "SNAKES really isn’t a novel: it is verbal butterfly-collecting, a transcript, it is a musical score…the words leap from the page and beg to be lived…speech is allowed to be what it must have been in Eden: a way of loving."