Read Online Hunting in Harlem by Mat Johnson - Free Book Online Page A

effort to move the twenty copies.
     In an attempt to assist him in this endeavor, the owner had booked Bobby Finley, author of The Great Work, to appear on the same day, at the same time as Bo Shareef, best-selling author of Datz What I'm Talking* 'Bout.
    The two sat at opposite ends of one long fold-out, a fortress of Datz What Im Talkin' 'Bout piled across the table, floor, and back wall on one side, twenty copies of The Great Work in two neat piles on the other. Shareef's publisher had outfitted him with blown-up images of the book and the author big
     enough to shame Mussolini. In the brief moment Bobby had a chance to speak with Mr. Shareef, he did find him friendly and
     charismatic, but it was the last chance they would have to talk as Bo Shareef was quickly swallowed by a mob of women Bobby
     had previously assumed to be the assembling of a large gospel choir.
    Three hours. It seemed as if every black woman in the DC Metro area had been bused in for the occasion. Shocked by the display,
     Bobby Finley faked a cough, reached back to his bag for his water and then leaned over and vicked a copy of Datz What I'm Talkin' 'Bout. A far cry from The Great Work's dignified all-white cover with the tide in black twelve-point Courier font, the cover of Datz What I'm Talkin' 'Bout looked like a panel from a self-published children's book. Upon inspecting the first sentence, first paragraph, first page,
     and first chapter, Bobby found prose with the originality, sophistication, and poetry of the instructions that came with Happy
     Meal toys. Yet the crowd kept coming. "You are the greatest, Mr. Shareef," they said. "Oh my God, I can't wait for your next
     one," they told him.
    Bobby read Datz What I'm Talkin' 'Bout in its entirety, right there at the table, too numb to be embarrassed. Of the handful of people that did stop by Bobby's side
     after the long wait for Bo Shareef's signature, few refrained from making a face when Bobby explained the plot of The Great Work. One said, "Alaska? There ain't no black people in Alaska." Those who didn't tried to get him to give them copies for free.
     One brother with what looked like a queen-sized bedsheet wrapped around his head demanded to know what his "thesis" was.
    Years had gone into crafting The Great Work. Years had gone into crafting single sentences within it. Authors' entire life works were reread just to inspire certain paragraphs.
    Bobby felt like a chef who had dedicated his life to the study of the greatest culinary techniques, practiced for years to
     perfect them before presenting his finest dish to the public, only to be outdone by a guy who walked in off the street, shit
     in a tortilla, and deep-fried it.
    Reeling from the public's failure to recognize the genius of The Great Work, Bobby Finley resolved to determine the reason. That's when he decided that the readers were dung beetles. That they didn't
     just consume crap, they liked it. That the critics, of course, were much less than that. That there was no one worth writing
     for.
    Snowden, who'd already made a point of admitting he thought Bo Shareef was "the bomb" before Bobby's story unfolded, could
     take no more. "Dude, did you ever even ask yourself if it ain't the other way around? Like, oh, I don't know, maybe every
     other human being in the world is right and you're the one that's wrong. Maybe The Great Work just sucks. You ever think of that?"
    "Yeah, I thought about that for a minute. But then I reread it. It's brilliant, they're dung beetles, trust me on this one."
    The world didn't deserve The Great Work, at least not in this century. So with renewed effort, Bobby spent what little money he had reacquiring every one of its three
     thousand copies. Besides Harlem and Horizon, Bobby's favorite thing about New York City was its used bookstores, the Strand
     and Gotham Book Mart, where he spent his money and free time. Also, that there were several Ikea furniture stores in the area,
     as The Great Work could