As gun and police violence ravage so many U.S. cities, and gentrification pushes people out of their homes, veteran poet and scholar of African-American culture Ed Pavlić offers a debut novel that explores the displacing and dehumanizing effects of these forces. Chicago, specifically, which Pavlić renders in synesthetic rhythms, tones, tastes and colors to show how a person’s hometown codes their consciousness. At its best, “Another Kind of Madness” is a 500-page prose poem, and the heights it scales are worth the bumpy ride toward the boundaries of fiction … the long African section of the book is not nearly as taut and controlled as the Chicago chapters, but it’s worth reading to discover why it’s so essential for Shame and Ndiya to lose and then find each other.
