PositiveThe Los Angeles Review of BooksMcBride has let fly a dexterous and strategically doleful collection of short stories called Five-Carat Soul. So many of the warm stories gently nuzzle perfection, and at its best, his pages function as an idyll of light-skinned lit, a category distinct from the once-dominant 'wypipo shit.' Only when the author gets chintzy with the music does the writing cease to soar ... In the world where formulations like 'for' and 'gived' every youngster who’s granted a voice in Five-Carat Soul has their own distinct flavor of innocence. Not a single sentence feels hemmed in by the imagination limits of white editors. There’s not a double-negative or repetition out of place, and McBride never gets ahead of the beat. Your heartbeat ... Make no mistake: Every story in Five-Carat Soul brings a professional spit-polish, but with severely diminished input of children, much of what follows the eponymous section lacks magic. And magic is everything with this cat. The lesser pieces are well-executed tricks that pay off with minimal flourish. Previously unthinkable, James McBride transforms into just another guy.
