Description: "A complex, scathing and often brilliant depiction of the disintegration of a black couple's relationship. . . . The Flagellants portrays a modern-day love affair gone sour--both Ideal and Jimson are presented with equal care and depth." - New York Times Book Review "[Jimson and Ideal] brilliantly and bitterly tear off layer after layer of rationalization and myth. ... It is rare in fiction for characters to possess complete awareness of their situation. That is what happens here. ... Novels so ambitious almost always fail. ... The Flagellants succeeds." - The American Scholar "Polite is not a blend of influences; she is. As a writer, she is immediately, irruptively, lyrically herself. As with most good writers, her writing has a life of its own, a life within the larger life of the work for which it is employed. ... The Flagellants does not attempt to define reality, psychical or political or social or 'real.' It is an attempt genuinely to exist, to be reality--a task more difficult for the novel every day. ... But this book is art, not argument. Everything in it grows from its texture. Its language is acutely sensory or vaultingly rhapsodic." - The New Republic

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