Tom-ing is such a normal thing, particularly in its urban capitol—New York—that one is sometimes shocked when a man, particularly a black man, decides not only to refuse to tom, but goes on the offensive, which, in the literary world, can mean muckraking. Ishmael Reed is such a man, and his most recent book Shrovetide in Old New Orleans…, is a collection of often bitter essays, reviews, and interviews that attack institutions and personages most black artists fume about in private and play the banjo for in public….

Reed's own work draws strongly on popular culture, erudite information, and the technology of our time for a mixture and vindictive juxtaposition that, as in his novel Mumbo Jumbo, can hurl snowballs filled with stones at the heads of famous and brutal forces. Reed has never cared whether his targets were black or white, only if they tried...