Revolutions of All Colors - (Veterans Writing Award) by Dewaine Farria (Hardcover)

About the Book

"... a novel that follows the lives of three black Americans as they confront the uniquely American dilemma of cobbling together an identity in a country still struggling to define itself. Farria stitches together myriad points of view and overlapping time-frames to tell a story of evolving masculinity and friendship in the midst of racial and sexual politics, fatherhood, and war"--

Book Synopsis

Gabriel Mathis, a twenty-three-year-old aspiring fantasy writer and reluctant Russophile, travels to Ukraine to teach English and meets the love of his life: an international arms dealer very much out of his league. Simon--a former Special Forces medic, torn over a warped sense of duty and a child he did not want--returns to the US to pursue his dream of becoming a mixed martial artist. After spending his adolescence defending his bisexuality, Michael makes his mark in New York's fashion industry while nursing resentment for a community that never accepted him.

Farria traces the lives of brothers Michael and Gabriel and their friend Simon from adolescence to their mid-twenties, through Oklahoma, Afghanistan, New York, Somalia, Ukraine, and New Orleans. Revolutions of All Colors is a brash, funny, and honest look at the evolution of characters we don't often see--black nerds and veterans bucking their community's rigid parameters of permissible expression while reconciling love of their country with the injustice of it.

At its core, this is a novel about the uniquely American dilemma of chiseling out an identity in a country still struggling to define itself.

Review Quotes

Revolutions of All Colors is a sweeping exploration of love and war, personhood and manhood, destiny and fate. Crossing continents and generations, the book sizzles with humanity's song--tough and tender--and, like Faulkner, it reveals the secret workings of far-flung hearts. Dewaine Farria's is a needed, fresh new voice in the American literary landscape.-- "Connie May Fowler, author of Before Women had Wings"

Revolutions of All Colors is a vivid, original novel of young men struggling with questions of race, injustice, personal and political violence; of responsibility to family, friends, lovers, sexual identity--of what it means to be a man. . . . It is a remarkable achievement.-- "Tobias Wolff"

Revolutions of All Colors masterfully conveys, in just 200 pages, the heaviness of lives constantly under examination because of race and sexuality, and their love for their country, each other, and themselves.-- "Book Riot"

A wonderfully kaleidoscopic portrait emerges of Black masculinity. . . . This grips the reader from start to finish.-- "Publishers Weekly"

Depicting the many ways in which we are transformed by struggle, Farria's compelling debut novel connects the injustices of the past with the urgencies of the present, while foregrounding the hope, dignity, and perseverance required for a better tomorrow.-- "T. Geronimo Johnson, author of Hold It 'Til It Hurts"

Farria writes with vibrant, breathtaking elegance, unabashed to imbue even bleak corners of the world with shades of humor and simmering sexuality.-- "Shelf Awareness"

The novel follows three young men - Gabriel, Michael and Simon - from their adolescence through their 20s as they figure out who they are and how they fit into the world. We get to see characters not seen enough in fiction - black nerds, and veterans who... struggle with reconciling deep injustice and love of country.-- "Portland Press Herald"

There's such ambition and such range in Farria's superb Revolutions of All Colors, which traces the American relationship to war and policing and race and violence and masculinity across forty years within one fascinating family. With vibrant characters and masterful evocations of everything from the work of contractors in 2000s Somalia to that of Black Panthers in 1970s New Orleans, this is a compulsively readable novel and a wonderful meditation on the complexities of American identity.-- "Phil Klay, author of Redeployment, winner of the National Book Award"

Your heart will at different times be comforted and incensed in Revolutions, which is so good this reviewer read the book twice.-- "Coffee or Die"

About the Author

Dewaine Farria's writing has appeared in the New York Times, CRAFT, Rumpus, the Southern Humanities Review, and on the Afropunk website. He is a coeditor at the Maine Review. He holds an MA in international and area studies from the University of Oklahoma and an MFA in creative writing from the Vermont College of Fine Arts. As a US Marine, Farria served in Jordan and Ukraine. Besides his stint in the military, Farria has spent most of his professional life working for the United Nations, with assignments in the Russian North Caucasus, Kenya, Somalia, and Occupied Palestine.