Amiable with Big Teeth

A Novel of the Love Affair Between the Communists and the Poor Black Sheep of Harlem

By: Claude McKay, Brent Hayes Edwards - editor, Jean-Christophe Cloutier - editor

Narrated by: Prentice Onayemi

The unexpected discovery in 2009 of a completed manuscript of Claude McKay's final novel was celebrated as one of the most significant literary events in recent years. Building on the already extraordinary legacy of McKay's life and work, this colorful, dramatic novel centers on the efforts by Harlem intelligentsia to organize support for the liberation of fascist-controlled Ethiopia, a crucial but largely forgotten event in American history.

At once a penetrating satire of political machinations in Depression-era Harlem and a far-reaching story of global intrigue and romance, Amiable with Big Teeth plunges into the concerns, anxieties, hopes, and dreams of African Americans at a moment of crisis for the soul of Harlem - and America.

©2017 The Literary Estate for the Works of Claude McKay (P)2017 Blackstone Audio, Inc.

Valuable insight into how common is trying to hijack the black community

While the story is not incredibly compelling, the conversations put into the mouths of the characters plus just the accurate depiction of how Soviet communists were trying to manipulate and use the black community for their own ends, make it a important book. It should be studied alongside Zora Neale Hurston and Richard Wright’s observations of the same deceit and duplicity practiced by the Stalinites.