Smoketown

Reviews

“Prentice Onayemi offers an engaging, easy-on-the-ears narration…[with a] mellow tone…He varies his tone to fit the material and sometimes just to change the pace. For direct quotes, he changes his pitch or adopts an accent to set those words apart…The stories are interesting, and Onayemi tells them well. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award.”

“Whitaker has given Pittsburgh’s wondrously rich black culture its due at long last…An absolute delight to read.”

“Smoketown brilliantly offers us a chance to see this other black renaissance and spend time with the many luminaries who sparked it as well as the often unheralded journalists who covered it…It’s thanks to such a gifted storyteller as Whitaker that this forgotten chapter of American history can finally be told in all its vibrancy and glory.”

“Terrific, eminently readable…These colorful stories of great black accomplishments simply make for fascinating reading.”

“Once upon a time, Pittsburgh was one of the country’s citadels of black aspiration in music, sports, business, and culture. This is the world affectionately summoned back to life with zest and passion by Mark Whitaker in Smoketown. There’s something close to enchantment to be found in the stories Whitaker unpacks piece by piece, name by glittering name.”

“Mark Whitaker’s chronicle of the rise and fall of black Pittsburgh is a revelation on every page. Comprehensive in scope and skillfully written.”

“An expansive, prodigiously researched, and masterfully told history.”

“Each subject’s narrative is a nuanced portrayal meant to challenge our country’s often narrow, dismissive version of black history. Cultural heavyweights such as boxer Joe Louis are treated as historical catalysts rather than extraordinary oddities….[and] not defined by oppression. Despite the setbacks of systemic racism and discrimination, black excellence flourishes regardless of the white gaze.”

“[Whitaker] rescues from unjust obscurity an American episode that continues to reverberate.”

“In vividly recreating the mid-twentieth-century heyday of black Pittsburgh, an almost magical locale for journalism, sports, music, politics, and business…this is a story of strength, pride, and achievement.”

“Informative and illuminating…Whitaker shines a well-deserved and long-overdue spotlight on this city within a city.”

“Proof that [Pittsburgh] had a thriving African American community rivaling those of Harlem and Chicago.”

“Mark Whitaker says his remarkable mid-twentieth century Pittsburgh ‘was a black version of the story of early twentieth-century Vienna.’ Mr. Whitaker is so riveting a storyteller that the reader even wonders if Belle Epoque Vienna had the equivalent of a Billy Eckstine, Mary Lou Williams, Billy Strayhorn, Joe Louis, or an August Wilson.”

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