Ain't Gonna Be the Same Fool Twice

by April Sinclair

Hardcover, 1996

Status

Available

Call number

PS3569.I5197 A77

Genres

General Fiction

All Topics

Fiction

Collections

Your library, University of Pittsburgh, Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh

Publication

Hyperion Books (1996), Edition: 1st, Hardcover, 324 pages

Description

Stevie Stevenson graduates from college and embraces the liberating California lifestyle in award-winning author April Sinclair's follow-up to her "vivid and brilliant" (San Francisco Review of Books) debut novel Coffee Will Make You Black Growing up black in 1960s Chicago, Jean "Stevie" Stevenson came of age amid the tumult of the civil rights movement, learning to value not just her race and gender but her sexuality as well. Now, nearly a decade later, Stevie is a college graduate enjoying a week of vacation in San Francisco. After getting a taste of the bohemian life, she can't bring herself to return home to her family and journalism career in Chicago. Instead, she's determined to spread her wings and discover her true self, experimenting with free love, gay pride, and vegetarianism; forging a friendship with a gay disco queen; and taking a job at the feminist Personal Change Counseling Center. As she falls in and out of love, Stevie takes time to observe both the absurd and the liberating qualities of the West Coast hippie lifestyle--and is constantly reminded that the journey to self-discovery likely has no end point. Written with the same bright wit and endless charm that made Coffee Will Make You Black such a beloved book, Ain't Gonna Be the Same Fool Twice is a delightful continuation of Stevie's story that was hailed by Salon as "ripely funny, unpretentious, and sincere." … (more)

User reviews

LibraryThing member fingerpost

About six months ago I read "Coffee Will Make You Black", which was a coming of age story set in the late 60s and early 70s in a poor black Chicago neighborhood. Stevie Stevenson told the story, and a little of the book was devoted to her questioning her own sexuality. "Ain't Gonna Be the Same Fool

Twice" is a sequal. Stevie is a few years older, and the book begins in college, and ends about a year after graduation... mostly set in San Francisco. The book touches on friendships and drug culture some, but it is primarily a memoir like tale of a young black bisexual woman, leaning to the lesbian side. Having grown up under traditional "family values", Stevie has trouble accepting herself, and is usually the polite, old fashioned person in any group of friends. April Sinclair writes well, but for me this one is no more than a three star book just because the subject of lesbian discovery in a new age town wasn't something I wanted to read a whole book about. I was expecting a book more like "Coffee Will Make You Black." If the subject matter sounds interesting to you, then I think you would like the book more than I, and rate it higher.

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LibraryThing member JeremyPreacher

I almost didn't read this because I disliked its predecessor so much, but it was the last book in my library stack and it's not about twelve-year-olds. It was a substantial improvement, anyway, although many of the fundamental flaws are still there.

The characters are still pretty much

one-dimensional, although they're not quite as cardboard-cutout as in the previous book. (And make no mistake, this is a sequel - it's just the next five years of the same character's life.) Since it's set in San Francisco in the mid-seventies rather than Chicago in the late 60s, they tend to be hippie or queer stereotypes rather than inner-city ones, which is, well, it's different, anyway. There are still at least a few one-shot "here's a scene to show what racism/sexism/homophobia is like" that don't really fit in the narrative at all, but they're not as constant. The writing is definitely defter, which made it a more pleasant read.

It's also still a pretty formless book. The touching scene at the end is nice and all, but there's still really no plot, as such. I like plot. I know that makes me plebian. I'm not sorry.

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