“Rediscovering Frank Yerby” Introduction

If you have been following my blog over the past few years, you have seen a lot of my work on Frank Yerby. That work has led to the publication of Rediscovering Frank Yerby: Critical Essays, a collection of essays that seeks to, as the title says, rediscover and reorient Yerby within the African American and American literary tradition. Pubisher’s Weekly review of the books states, “This collection makes for an effective introduction to a now comparatively little-known author, and a strong case for a greater literary significance than has typically been accorded him. “

This has been a project years in the making, and over the course of it, I have come into contact with some amazing people. One of those in KaToya Ellis Fleming who recently had a piece published in The Oxford American about her uncle and Frank Yerby. They made a list of individuals in Augusta that to research an dwrite about, and Yerby was on that list. Uncle Wayne told KaToya, “That damn Yerby was a trip. He’ll be right up your alley.” Wayne’s statement resonates with me, because the more I delve into Yerby’s life and work, the more I realize he “was a trip,” but I also realize that he is “right up [my] alley” in the ways he interrogates many facets of our society.