Amiable with Big Teeth
Claude McKay
Penguin Classics
In the first line of their introduction to Amiable with Big Teeth, academics Jean-Christophe Cloutier and Brent Hayes compare this manuscript, recently unearthed from Claude McKay’s papers, with Flann O’Brien’s The Third Policeman: both are classic novels, they say, rejected by publishers and only released after their authors died.
However, you might suspect that such discoveries are sometimes motivated more by marketing than literary value; it is natural to be sceptical when a lost, unknown text is published posthumously, not least when it is the subject of lofty praise and flattering comparisons straight away.
McKay is associated with the Harlem Renaissance explosion of African-American creativity in 1920s New York. This novel, written in 1941, concerns the efforts of Ethiopian activists to gain support from Harlem intellectuals in lifting the Italian occupation of Ethiopia in World War Two. This backdrop offers much potential for interesting drama, but, apart from the dull, listless prose, the story focuses too much on gossipy scene infighting to be of interest to most contemporary readers.
By the time he wrote this book, McKay had grown disillusioned with the left-wing intelligentsia he once rubbed shoulders with; perhaps with a little more detachment he could have written a satire that bit more sharply, or come up with a story that better held the reader’s interest.
Words: Stephen Cox
