Randall Kenan is emerging as one of the foremost young African American writers. Using a mixture of realistic detail and often surrealistic narrative, he creates the world of Tims Creek, North Carolina, a space occupied by demons, ghosts, and ordinary residents. He incorporates into this portrayal the difficult and sometimes tragic experiences of homosexuals. At the same time, his stories do not fit the conventional modes of either racial or gay fiction. As a reviewer for the Virginia Quarterly Review has suggested, "The old tropes and conventions (and clichés) are only tools now." Nonetheless, Kenan has embraced these aspects of his identity, especially his racial identity, through nonfiction books on James Baldwin and on African American experiences across the United States. A consistent theme in Kenan's body of work is the breaking of boundaries, whether in literary expression or personal identity.

This violation of rules can...