Hachette India

Ladies Of The Rachmaninoff Eyes (Faber Editions): Introduced by Taíno Mendez

Henry Van Dyke

An outrageously witty tragicomedy-of-manners about a queer black teenager coming of age, introduced by Mendez, author of Rainbow Milk.

When a peacock's days are over, they're over.

Oliver is precocious, black and gay. He reads Baudelaire, plays with his pet peacock, eats smoked oysters and fends off the maid Della Mae whenever she gets the 'Nasties'. He lives in rural Michigan with two elderly ladies: the white, wealthy Etta and her devoted housekeeper, Harry, his aunt. When a psychic warlock named Maurice LeFleur comes to stay, however, promising to contact the ghost of Etta's dead son, their eccentric household starts to fall apart.

First published in 1965, at the height of the Civil Rights Movement, this sparklingly witty debut novel is a radically hopeful vision of racial integration and sexual acceptance that was years ahead of its time.

Henry Van Dyke

Henry Van Dyke (1928-2011) was born in Allegan, Michigan, and grew up in Montgomery, Alabama, where his parents were professors at Alabama State College. He served in the Army in occupied Germany, playing flute in the 427th Marching Band. There he abandoned his early ambition to become a concert pianist and began to write. In 1958, after attending the University of Michigan on the G. I. Bill and living in Ann Arbor,he moved to New York, where he spent the rest of his life. Henry taught creative writing part-time at Kent State University from 1969 until his retirement in 1993 and was the author of four novels, including Blood of Strawberries, a sequel to Ladies of the Rachmaninoff Eyes.