Tony Pellar, a man of former style and fading beauty, has fled to the subway tunnels beneath New York. There he makes an even more perilous interior journey convinced the key to his sanity lies in retracing the events of his North Carolina childhood. As Tony gradually remembers, the stories of both his childhood friend Mikey, and of Agatha, a complex woman with a disfigured face, interweave with his own. All three stories finally come together against the backdrop of the civil rights movement and a heartrending and haunting climax.

Orange Laughter: A Novel

Literature & Fiction

Ross, Leone

Literary

Picador

Tony Pellar, a man living on the verge of madness in the subway tunnels of New York City, recalls his life during the 1960s Civil Rights movement in North Carolina in an effort to recreate his painful past.

Orange Laughter

United States

Farrar. Straus & Giroux

"Bold, iridescent... Dazzling and shocking... Ross's lyrical, rhythmic writing is something to be savored... [Her] voice sings out loud and pure." --Eowyn Ivey,The New York Times Book Review An uproarious, sensual novel, Leone Ross'sPopishoconjures a world where magic is everywhere, food is fate, politics are broken, and love awaits. Everyone in Popisho was born with a little something-something, boy, a little somethingextra. The local name was cors. Magic, but more than magic. A gift, nah? Yes. From the gods: a thing so inexpressibly your own. Somewhere far away--or maybe right nearby--lies an archipelago called Popisho. A place of stunning beauty and incorrigible mischief, destiny and mystery, it is also a place in need of change. Xavier Redchoose is the macaenus of his generation, anointed by the gods to make each resident one perfect meal when the time is right. Anise, his long-lost love, is on a march toward reckoning with her healing powers. The governor's daughter, Sonteine, still hasn't come into her cors, but her corrupt father is demanding the macaenus make a feast for her wedding. Meanwhile, graffiti messages from an unknown source are asking hard questions. A storm is brewing. Before it comes, before theend of the day, this wildly imaginative narrative will take us across the islands, through their history, and into the lives of unforgettable characters. Leone Ross'sPopishois a masterful delight: a playful love story, a portrait of community, a boldly sensual meditation on desire and addiction, and a critique of the legacies of corruption and colonialism. Inspired by the author's Jamaican homeland, inflected with rhythms and textures of an amalgam of languages, it is a dazzling, major work of fiction.

Popisho: A Novel

Farrar. Straus and Giroux

'A true feat of imagination and wonder.' Nikesh Shukla 
'It blisters with life, love, grief and magic.' Niven Govinden 
'Stunning.' Kei Miller\nDawn breaks across the archipelago of Popisho. The world is stirring awake again, each resident with their own list of things to do:\nA wedding feast to conjure and cook 
An infidelity to investigate 
A lost soul to set free\nAs the sun rises two star-crossed lovers try to find their way back to one another across this single day. When night falls, all have been given a gift, and many are no longer the same.\nThe sky is pink, and some wonder if it will ever be blue again.\nWhat readers are saying 
'Brimming with and life and love and just absolutely gorgeous writing. a one-of-a-kind novel.'\n'I couldn't put it down and I will be recommending it to everyone.'\n'A story luxuriously and confidently told, which is sumptuous from sentence to sentence. There is both literal and literary magic here.'\n'This book is bursting at the seams with beauty! Magic! Love! Imagination! It is a burst of colour and flame.'\n'It's hard to explain, but if you love getting lost in a story, this could be one for you.'

This One Sky Day

Contemporary

Faber&Faber

Among the ethnic gangs that rule America's inner cities, none has had the impact of the Jamaican posses. Spawned in the ghettos of Kingston as mercenary street-fighters for the island's politicians, the posses began migrating to the United States in the early 1980s, just in time to catch and ride the crack wave as it engulfed the country. Feared and honoured for being "harder than the rest", these Jamaican cocaine syndicates laid claim to their new American, and subsequently British, territories with outlaw bravura and a ruthlessness that was immortalized in song; the raw dance hall music born of their world defined "gangsta" culture for a generation of angry sufferers in Jamaica, America and Britain. The voices of the young soldiers go unheard, silenced early in life by the guns that both distinguish and destroy their lives. This study records these voices. Laurie Gunst is the author of "The Nation", "Spin" and "The Stories that Shape Us: Twenty Women Write About the West".

Born Fi'dead: A Journey Through the Jamaican Posse Underworld

Politics & Social Sciences

Gunst PhD, Laurie

Social Sciences

Canongate Books Ltd.

"Bold, iridescent . . . Dazzling and shocking . . . Ross's lyrical, rhythmic writing is something to be savored . . . [Her] voice sings out loud and pure." --Eowyn Ivey, The New York Times Book Review An uproarious, sensual novel, Leone Ross's Popisho conjures a world where magic is everywhere, food is fate, politics are broken, and love awaits. Everyone in Popisho was born with a little something-something, boy, a little something extra. The local name was cors. Magic, but more than magic. A gift, nah? Yes. From the gods: a thing so inexpressibly your own. Somewhere far away--or maybe right nearby--lies an archipelago called Popisho. A place of stunning beauty and incorrigible mischief, destiny and mystery, it is also a place in need of change. Xavier Redchoose is the macaenus of his generation, anointed by the gods to make each resident one perfect meal when the time is right. Anise, his long-lost love, is on a march toward reckoning with her healing powers. The governor's daughter, Sonteine, still hasn't come into her cors, but her corrupt father is demanding the macaenus make a feast for her wedding. Meanwhile, graffiti messages from an unknown source are asking hard questions. A storm is brewing. Before it comes, before the end of the day, this wildly imaginative narrative will take us across the islands, through their history, and into the lives of unforgettable characters. Leone Ross's Popisho is a masterful delight: a playful love story, a portrait of community, a boldly sensual meditation on desire and addiction, and a critique of the legacies of corruption and colonialism. Inspired by the author's Jamaican homeland, inflected with rhythms and textures of an amalgam of languages, it is a dazzling, major work of fiction.

Popisho

Picador Paper

From headless schoolgirls, to talking food and threesomes, pretty much anything can happen in these witty, weird and wonderful short stories by Leone Ross. Ranging from flash fiction to intense psychological drama, magical realism, horror and erotica, these strange, clever, frank and sometimes very funny stories have a serious side too. Carefully crafted over 15 years, they explore unbounded sexualities, a vision of the fluidity of the person, and politics – from the deaths of black people at the hands of the police, to the deep shifts that signal the subtle changes in the nature of capitalism and much more. These stories may sometimes tickle, sometimes shock; but will always engage both the intellect and the heart.

Come Let Us Sing Anyway

Peepal Tree Press Ltd.

Tony Pellar, a man of former style and fading beauty, has fled to the subway tunnels beneath New York. There he makes an even more perilous interior journey convinced the key to his sanity lies in retracing the events of his North Carolina childhood.   As Tony gradually remembers, the stories of both his childhood friend Mikey, and of Agatha, a complex woman with a disfigured face, interweave with his own. All three stories finally come together against the backdrop of the civil rights movement and a heartrending and haunting climax.

Anchor Books

Resist: Stories of Uprising

SHAMSIE, Kamila

Williams, Eley

Lambert, Zoe

Bradley, SJ

SK Mamata, Bidisha

Genre Fiction

Comma Press

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Ross, Leone. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Ross, Leone