Brooklynite’s latest novel brings Coney Island to life
Brooklyn BookBeat
Park Slope writer Andrew Lewis Conn burst onto the literary scene in 2003 with his avant-garde novel “P.,” described in the New York Times Book Review as “rambunctious, exhilarating, surreal, funny and moving” while Kirkus anointed Conn “a writer to watch.” On June 10, Conn returns with his long-awaited new novel, bringing his remarkable talents to bear in “O, AFRICA!” (Hogarth), a sweeping historical adventure comparable in its exuberance and scope to “Ragtime” and “The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay,” with brotherhood and forbidden love playing out against the backdrop of the birth of the movies.
A Brooklyn native, Conn grew up frequenting Coney Island — the neighborhood that inspired the opening set piece of his book. “I long wanted to write about Coney Island, and both the amusement park’s historic position in American popular culture and how the movie industry finds its roots in a kind of carny/vaudeville tradition really made it the perfect setting for the novel’s opening,” says Conn. Throughout the novel, Conn’s vivid descriptions bring to life Coney Island and other Brooklyn neighborhoods.
An energetic text, “O, AFRICA!” digs deep into the separate cultures of Jews, gays, and African Americans in the early twentieth century and how they intersect yet remain outside the mainstream. Micah and Izzy Grand, the twin sons of Jewish immigrants, are making a name for themselves in the slapstick silent film world of 1920s New York. Red-haired, bombastic Micah is the director and dark, quiet Izzy works his magic behind the camera lens. But motion pictures are changing with the times and the Grands’ enterprise is waning as the talkies threaten to eat up business. Micah’s penchant for gambling and a clandestine interracial affair with his costume girl, Rose, are leading him down a dark road, one populated by Harlem gangsters and ominous late-night visits with jazz club thugs. Izzy, a “confirmed bachelor,” harbors his own secrets and struggles to keep his brother’s recklessness from destroying their livelihood.