Deals with the Devil Pearl Cleage HC Unclipped dust jacket marked first edition with full number line. In very nice shape, but some browning to DJ seems to be starting and there is a fold to the back side of the DJ.

From the DJ:

DEALS WITH THE DEVIL And Other Reasons to Riot

Dead-on, to the point, fearless. A third-generation black nationalist feminist, Pearl Cleage recognizes the pure power of telling the uncompromising truth-about African-American life and about the fate of the race in racist America. Whether she's writing about her-and her sisters' definition of a good brother, or why she's so mad at Miles Davis, Deals with the Devil is filled with Pearl's provocative insights and she never takes the easy way out. Here's Pearl on:

Black conservatives: "While only those with faith and patience get to talk to God, everybody gets to talk to the Devil, and if the deal goes down like it's supposed to, some people get to talk for him."

Drugs: "I don't applaud or endorse our collective suicide pact, but I understand it and think it's as honorable a choice as pretending to bask in the glow of those thousand points of imaginary light."

Black manhood: "It has come to my attention that some brothers feel that we, their sisters, are giving mixed signals on the manhood thing. We want, they say, all the protection and safety offered by a strong man but we are unwilling to accept the presence of the warrior's heart."

Why she writes: "I am writing because five women a day are murdered by the men who say they love them. I am writing because rape is. I am writing to expose and explore the point where racism and sexism meet. I am writing to help myself understand the full effects of being black and female in a culture that is both racist and sexist."

In Deals with the Devil, Pearl Cleage "wanted to see if I could talk about the things black women writers address in our novels in a form that was more direct and invited political analysis and discussion rather than literary criticism." Anyone who picks up this book will be incited to ponder, argue, rage, reflect, and maybe even riot. Powerful and powerfully unsettling, Deals with the Devil is the work of a new voice giving us insights into our world that consistently teach and amaze.

Pearl Cleage is an Atlanta-based writer, performance artist, and award-winning playwright. She is the artistic director of Just Us Theater Company, editor of Catalyst Magazine, a columnist for the Atlanta Tribune, and Playwright in Residence at Spelman College. She writes regularly for Essence and many other periodicals.