@book {1378473, title = {Albert Murray: Collected Novels \& Poems}, year = {2018}, publisher = {Library of America}, organization = {Library of America}, abstract = {One of the leading cultural critics of his generation, Albert Murray was also the author of an extraordinary quartet of semi-autobiographical novels, vivid impressionistic portraits of black life in the Deep South in the 1920s and {\textquoteright}30s and in prewar New York City.\ Train Whistle Guitar\ (1974) introduces Murray{\textquoteright}s recurring narrator and protagonist, Scooter, a "Southern jackrabbit raised in a briarpatch" too nimble ever to receive a scratch. Scooter{\textquoteright}s education in books, music, and the blue-steel bent-note blues-ballad realities of American life continues in\ The Spyglass Tree\ (1991), Murray{\textquoteright}s "Portrait of the Artist as a Tuskegee Undergraduate."\ The Seven League Boots\ (1996) follows Scooter as he becomes a bass player in a touring band not unlike Duke Ellington{\textquoteright}s, and\ The Magic Keys\ (2005), in which Scooter at last finds his true vocation as a writer in Greenwich Village, is an elegaic reverie on an artist{\textquoteright}s life. Editors Henry Louis Gates Jr. and Paul Devlin round out the volume with a selection of Murray{\textquoteright}s remarkable poems, including 11 unpublished pieces from his notebooks, and two rare examples of his work as a short story writer.}, editor = {Henry Louis Gates, Jr. and Paul Devlin} }