I first discovered Frank Yerby (1916-1991) in the anthology, Black Southern Voices: An Anthology of Fiction, Poetry, Drama, Nonfiction, and Critical Essays (1992). My father purchased the withdrawn book from the public library yesterday. Immediately, I was drawn to the short story, "Health Card," which won the O. Henry Memorial Award in 1944 for best first short story.
"Health Card" is set in the Jim Crow South, where an African-American soldier awaits for the arrival of his wife, Lily. Needless to say, the story is very suspenseful and will have you sitting on the edge of your seat. I love how the story explores black masculinity: how does a man be a man when his manhood is constantly challenged and undermined?
As an African-American writer, I feel I have a responsibility to challenge the status quo. I feel a need to write something so profound and illuminating that it challenges and confronts racism. However, I don't know if my writing achieves that yet. Right now, my writing deals with the fantastical and supernatural, but maybe one day, I will write that ground-breaking novel...one day...until then, we still have Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man (1953) and Ann Petry's The Street (1946).
