Employing a dynamic model of the relationship between text and context, Jones shows how more than thirty relevant writers -- including Madison Smartt Bell, Larry Brown, Bebe Moore Campbell, Thulani Davis, Ellen Douglas, Ernest Gaines, Josephine Humphreys, Randall Kenan, Reynolds Price, Alice Walker, and Tom Wolfe -- illuminate the complexities of the color line and explore problems in defining racial identity today.

Suzanne W. Jones is a professor of English at the University of Richmond. She has published many articles about southern literature, and she is the editor of four books: two collections of essays, South to a New Place: Region, Literature, Culture (with Sharon Monteith) and Writing the Woman Artist, and two collections of stories, Crossing the Color Line: Readings in Black and White and Growing Up in the South.