Publisher's Synopsis
Review in NYTBR 8/27/20 Cotman's politically engaged folkloric stories owe a debt to writers as varied as Zora Neale Hurston and Phillip Pullman. His work celebrates the lived experience of black people. His stories are those of triumph over injustice but victory never comes without sacrifice. Cotman's own experience of economic displacement and of being a young black man in America lend an underlying honesty to these stories, even if there are fantastic elements, of the struggles of everyday people, rebellion against consumerism and the rejection of cultural conventions. Cotman has toured very widely for many years and his experience as a slam poet has made him very comfortable with a mic in his hands. Cotman has long been immersed in the book world: he has worked at a library (Hillman) and as a shelf stocker at Borders and as a summer reading specialist for Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh.
