Lewis (In the Arms of Our Elders
) crafts a thoughtful, appealing collection deeply concerned with the pride and pain of African-American heritage. The weight that troubled history brings to bear on the present is most powerfully recognized in the title story, in which a black man meets a white woman in a bar and agrees to drive her to Staunton, Va., where he's headed to care for his dying uncle. It's a fraught encounter haunted by the man's recollection of his uncle's stories about lynchings. "Rossonian Days," which follows a jazz band on its way to a gig in Denver, is a passionate, poetic riff on the evolution of jazz and its place in African-American culture. Lewis also explores more personal histories, as in the exquisite "Shades," in which a 14-year-old boy mingling with the crowd at a blues festival finally lays eyes on the father he has never met. "In a circle of loud men, all holding beer, all howling in laughter... stood a large man in a worn gray suit tugging his tie jokingly like a noose.... I looked at myself in the reflection of [his] mirrored lenses and thought, So this is me
." Though Lewis's plots can be a bit thin and the basic footwork of getting around in a story can feel a little clumsy, the cumulative effect of these 10 pieces is unquestionably powerful. Agent, Nina Graybill. (Apr.)