The Unicorn Woman

A richly imaginative and moving new novel from the Pulitzer finalist and acclaimed author of Corregidora. A cook and tractor repairman, Buddy was known as Budweiser to his army pals because he's a wise guy. But underneath that surface, he's a man on a quest: looking for religion, looking for meaning, looking for love. Returning from the Second World War not to a hero's welcome, but to the discrimination of the Jim Crow laws, Buddy stumbles across the Unicorn Woman, a carnival sideshow with a horn growing from her forehead, whose strange beauty he can't forget. As he drifts across the South, from Kentucky to Memphis, Buddy encounters a dazzling array of almost mythic characters: circus barkers, topiary trimmers, landladies who provide shelter and plenty of advice for their all-Black clientele, proto feminists and bigots - dreaming all the while of the unforgettable Unicorn Woman herself. With her inimitable eye for beauty, tragedy and humour, Jones offers a rich, intriguing exploration of the Black imagination in a time of frustration and hope. 'Gayl Jones's work represents a watershed in American literature . . . she stands at the very cutting edge of understanding the modern world' Imani Perry 'A literary legend . . . A once-in-a-lifetime work of literature, the kind that changes your understanding of the world' Yara Rodrigues Fowler on Palmares