cover image A Visitation of Spirits

A Visitation of Spirits

Randall Kenan. Anchor Books, $12.95 (272pp) ISBN 978-0-385-41505-7

Four generations of a black North Carolina family emerge in a novel that tracks a teenager's coming to terms with his identity. ``Although shifts in time and tone are often jarring and sometimes gratuitous, the strength and richness of Kenan's best passages sweep any objections aside,'' wrote PW. (Oct.)