SOURCE: Bryant, Jerry H. “Who? Jes Grew? Like Topsy? No, Not Like Topsy.” Nation 215, no. 8 (25 September 1972): 245-47.

In the following essay, Bryant praises Reed's synthesis of history and fiction in Mumbo Jumbo, placing the novel within the context of Reed's other fictional work.

Reading the work of Ishmael Reed is a special experience. It's like moving through the nightmare world of William Burroughs permeated by the crack-brained whimsy of Max Shulman. Slimy “things” grow in undefrosted refrigerators. Heads of state commit gleeful sodomy in motel basements. Generals talk like pansies, and dictators like Brooklyn truck drivers. Crazy names pop up—Bukka Doopeyduk, Eclair Porkchop, Theda Doompussy Blackwell, the Loop Garoo Kid.

Mumbo Jumbo is not quite the same thing we got in The Free-Lance Pallbearers (1967) and Yellow Back Radio Broke-Down (1969). Those were acerb parodies of various aspects of American life, created with unquenchable good humor. The first ridiculed...