| Oreo | |
|---|---|
Dust-jacket from the first edition |
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| Author(s) | Fran Ross |
| Cover artist | Ann Twombly |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Genre(s) | Novel |
| Publisher | Northeastern University Press(publisher) |
| Publication date | 1974 |
| Media type | Print (Paperback) |
| Pages | 212 pp |
| ISBN | 1-55553-464-3 |
| OCLC Number | 44461973 |
| Dewey Decimal | 813/.54 21 |
| LC Classification | PS3568.O8433 O74 2000 |
Oreo is a satirical novel published in 1974 by Fran Ross, a journalist and short-lived comedy writer for Richard Pryor. The book was almost forgotten and became out of print until Harryette Mullen rediscovered the novel and brought it out of obscurity. The book has since acquired cult classic status.[1]
Contents |
Born to a Jewish father and black mother who divorce before she is two, Oreo grows up in Philadelphia with her maternal grandparents while her mother tours with a theatrical troupe. Soon after puberty, Oreo heads for New York with a pack on her back to search for her father; but in the big city she discovers that there are dozens of Sam Schwartzes in the phone book, and Oreo's mission turns into a wickedly humorous picaresque quest. The ambitious and playful narrative challenges accepted notions of race, ethnicity, culture, and even the novelistic form itself; its quest theme is inspired by that of the Greek tale of Theseus.[2][3]
Ross uses the structure of the Theseus myth to both trap Oreo and allow her to reinvent it. Oreo's white father, who abandoned her, forces her to live out this inherently white, male narrative. However, the trope of lost patriarchy is essential in black cultures so Oreo can reappropriate the myth and make it entirely non-foreign. Furthermore, Oreo reinvents the archaic myth by living a black narrative through it, suggesting that blacks can reappropriate themes from the white culture they are forced to live in. The search for paternity within the Theseus myth is essentially futile since Oreo gains nothing from finding her father, which undermines the importance placed on the search for paternity.
Upon its republication by Northeastern University Press in 2000, the then nearly thirty-year-old novel was praised for being ahead of its time. Oreo has been hailed as "one of the masterpieces of 20th century American comic writing."[4] Furthermore, one critic elaborated that Oreo was "a true twenty-first century novel." The novel's "wit is global, hybrid and uproarious ... simultaneously irreverent, appropriative and serious. It is post-everything: post-modern, post-identity politics, post-politically correct."[5] Novelist Paul Beatty also included an excerpt of Oreo in his 2006 anthology of African-American humor Hokum. In June 2007, Cultural critic Jalylah Burrell listed the book on VIBE.com as the number one work in African-American literature that should be adapted into a major motion picture, writing, "Quirky comedy with surrealist elements, i.e., Wes Anderson meets Kaufman/Gondry."[6]
Mat Johnson chose Oreo for his 2011 appearance on the NPR program You Must Read This, describing it as "one of the funniest books I've ever read, but I've never quoted it. To do so, I would have to put quotations before the first page and then again at the last." He too stated that as a "feminist odyssey", published eight years before Alice Walker's The Colour Purple, the book had simply been ahead of its time: "A truly original view of our world is what we yearn for in fiction, but sometimes when something is so original, so many years ahead of its time, it takes time for the audience to catch up to it. It's a statement of how far we've come that for this quirky, hilarious, odd, little biracial black book, that time is now."[3]
The novel was adapted by Adam Davenport into a screenplay intended as a starring vehicle for Keke Palmer. The project is yet to be produced.