King Comus

A Novel

By: William Demby, Melanie Masterton - introduction

Past and present collide in this posthumous, semiautobiographical masterpiece by the author of Beetlecreek.

In the present day, a Black American expat to Rome named D. reconnects with his former Army friend, Tillman, and their former commanding officer, Joe Stabat, to organize a gospel summit for the singer Little Antioch. In the 1940s, as D. becomes enmeshed in Tillman’s large and boisterous family for the first time, Tillman recounts the story of his fabled ancestor King Comus. And in the early nineteenth century, master musician King Comus embarks on a grand journey to freedom from enslavement.

In this time-bending tale of survival and kinship, the product of more than twenty years of literary labor, William Demby weaves elements of the neo-slave narrative and Afrofuturism into a panoramic vision encompassing the forces of empire, race, gender, and religion.

Critic reviews

“One of the great novelists of the last 100 years.” —Ishmael Reed, author of Mumbo Jumbo

“Necessary reading.” —Los Angeles Review of Books

“A splendid finale to the career of a profoundly gifted and vastly underappreciated American writer.” —Mosaic magazine