the last book I ever read (Black Deutschland by Darryl Pinckney, excerpt twelve)

from Black Deutschland: A Novel by Darryl Pinckney:

I’d read Isherwood’s novel so often I had no trouble inserting myself into its scene. I am the negro boxer—small n of the British 1930s—whom Isherwood sees at the far end of Potsdamerstrasse, working at a fairground, in an attraction of fixed boxing and wrestling matches. I take my turn knocking guys out and getting knocked out. And I, the black boxer in his stance, am going to meet Otto’s brother, Lothar, a smoldering Nazi whose bed Isherwood was given when he moved in with the working-class Nowaks. I am going to guide him to the light and we will never age.