The Portable Promised Land Stories

Welcome to Soul City, the fictional American metropolis where magic is as natural as sunshine. With this inspired collection--in which irreverent humor and sharp-eyed social satire combine to produce unforgettable stories--Toure emerges as one of the most talented and inventive young writers at work today.

Toure is a contributing editor at Rolling Stone. His fiction has appeared in The Source, Callaloo, and Zoetrope: All Story, where he won the Sam Adams Short Story Contest, and his essays have appeared in The New Yorker, the New York Times, and the New York Times Magazine, as well as in Best American Essays of 1999 and Best American Sports Writing 2001. He lives in Fort Greene, Brooklyn

Prologue

1

(2)

The Steviewondermobile

3

(6)

A Hot Time at the Church of Kentucky Fried Souls and the Spectacular Final Sunday Sermon of the Right Revren Daddy Love

9

(16)

The Breakup Ceremony

25

(7)

The Sad, Sweet Story of Sugar Lips Shinehot, the Man with the Portable Promised Land

32

(15)

Afrolexicology Today's Biannual List of the Top Fifty Words in African-America Blackmanwalkin

60

(16)

Attack of the Love Dogma

63

(10)

My History

73

(8)

The Playground of the Ecstatically Blase

81

(14)

The African-American Aesthetics Hall of Fame, or 101 Elements of Blackness (Things That'll Make You Say: Yes! That There's Some Really Black Shit!)

95

(10)

Solomon's Big Day

105

(11)

A Children's Story

It's Life and Death at the Slush Puppie Open

116

(8)

How Babe Ruth Saved My Life

124

(9)

We Words

133

(9)

My Favorite Things

Soul City Gazette Profile: Crash Jinkins, Last of the Chronic Crashees

142

(7)

A Guest !

149

(4)

You Are Who You Kill

153

(15)

The Black Widow Story

Young, Black, and Unstoppable, or Death of a Zeitgeist Jockey

168

(18)

The Black Widow Prequel and Sequel

Once an Oreo, Always an Oreo

186

(8)

The Black Widow Finale

The Commercial Channel: A Unique Business Opportunity

194

(7)

Falcon Malone Can Fly No Mo

201

(17)

The Sambomorphosis

218

(14)

They're Playing My Song

232

(20)

Yesterday Is So Long Ago

252

(1)

Shout-Outs

253

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The Portable Promised Land Stories

Summary

Author Biography

Table of Contents

Supplemental Materials