Harare Review of Books

224 pages. Published August 20, 2024 by Beacon Press. Fiction.

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Buddy Ray Guy has encountered that rarest of creatures, the unicorn woman. No, really: he sees, at a carnival, a woman with a horn apparently growing out of her forehead, which sets him on a (relatively half-hearted) quest to meet and talk to her. All he really does, though, is follow the carnival around and pay his money to stare at her.

But this is not a story about the unicorn woman; it’s really about Buddy, a Black World War II veteran newly returned to the South with its Jim Crow laws. It’s an exploration of dislocation: Buddy delayed his return to the US and spent time and had affairs in post-War France, and then also hung out for a bit in Harlem before returning home. He has a decent but relatively irregular job, and in between contracts, he wanders.

The Unicorn Woman is an exquisitely done slice-of-life depiction of post-WWII southern US from a Black veteran’s perspective, somewhat surreal, magical and tender. It touches on Black lives and struggles, sexism (both in the US and, surprisingly, in post-war France), and encounters in the rural South during Jim Crow. Buddy is an excellent narrator and character, pensive and slightly unworldly, but acutely perceptive. He sets the tone for and leisurely pace of this wonderful, character-driven novel.

Many thanks to Beacon Press and Edelweiss for early access.

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