Passage

“Khary Lazarre-White’s gripping, relentless dive into the inner life of a young African American male named Warrior invites readers into a world where few have dared to venture. In this world, mysticism and madness walk hand in hand with the waking reality of so many young Black men in America, a reality that by any rational measure is itself insane. In Passage, Lazarre-White offers insights and answers to the one question the media never asks when scrutinizing young Black men for their responses to that reality: Why?”

“Passage is a work of great originality, pain, and aching beauty. Its protagonist, Warrior, a sensitive, haunted and haunting young man, bears the burden of history: the past is always near, shaping and informing present realities of black boys like himself. As he traverses a dystopic urban landscape, one that is both surreal and all too real, he encounters the depth of Black Rage, the persistence of Black Death, and the tremendous capacity of Black Love. Like Warrior, Passage pays homage to its predecessors, while forging its own path – one that speaks most eloquently to our present and insists that we create a starkly different future.”

Named among “The Best New Fiction,” by The Wall Street Journal: “Passage, written in a striking blend of street vernacular and classical declamation, turns Warrior’s daily journey between school and home into a kind of spiritual pilgrimage. Mr. Lazarre-White has written an artfully compact parable of a noble soul seeking deliverance.”

“As Warrior experiences dangers real and imagined, current and ancestral, Lazarre-White, activist and founder of a Harlem-based youth-education organization, infuses his vivid journey with thought- and discussion-provoking symbolism. This is a unique and haunting portrayal of a young black man considering his inheritance, and his destiny.”

“Lazarre-White has crafted the novel to appeal to both young people and the adults intent on understanding and anchoring them. Take note when Warrior explains his disdain for those who believe a mere shift in personal attitude can effect substantive change… The overwhelming scope of our dispossession is surreal, and so Black writers must make beautiful narratives that repossess. The beautiful struggle, in Passage, is to bring all Warriors back home.”

“You will not soon forget this gem of a book. With powerful, searing prose, Mr. Lazarre-White has written a book that in Kafka’s immortal phrase wounds and stabs. From the haunting opening passage about Midnight Blue, the reader cannot look away, no matter how much pain spills across these pages; pages which cross the expanse from 1993 Harlem to the slavers of antebellum America. Without the pain, however, the story would ring hollow. This novel is anything but. This is a book about History. And Memory. And Destiny.”

“Khary Lazarre-White is one of the most transformative men of his generation. As co-founder of Bro/Sis organization he has changed countless lives. In Passage he brings that same sense of purpose to a chilling tale that follows a young man named Warrior. Set in 1993, this rich intelligent work documents how the ghosts of the past still haunt us.”

“Khary Lazarre-White’s Passage is a brave account of black survival in white America when a strong family operates as the necessary bulwark… there is honesty in this novel, in Warrior’s daily life and rituals that will chill you at the bone.”

“A short, stark and eerily beautiful novel, Passage is set in a past, and yet somehow dystopian, New York in which there are giants, ghosts and wolves which howl and stalk the streets whilst drums sound. Figures from mythology and folklore – ancestors and gods – emerge and interrogate Warrior.”

“This meditation on rage, death and love is powerfully relevant.”

Among “19 Books You Should Read This September”

“A lyrical account of a life invisible to most of us.”