Anthony Jemison

Cranberry Hill Anthony Jemison

How do you decide to take a life? Do you wake up one day and just do it or is there a story? Of course it begins with a story, there's always a story. And so begins the novel, Cranberry Hill a literary murder mystery that centers on a liberal middle-class African-American professor who is fed up with behavior that he deems to be detrimental to the black race. Tired of excuses and tired of African-American leaders blaming whites, he resorts to "liberating" (killing) certain members of the race, in order to "save" it. Cranberry Hill is the 'Invisible Man' of its era, because underneath the main character's murderous rampage is W. E. B. Dubois' theme of "double-consciousness" the notion that African-Americans like the protagonist have a love/hate relationship with their own race. Cranberry Hill is fast paced, with a symbiotic blending of mystery -though the reader knows who the killer is the question of whether he is caught isn't answered until the very end - relevant social and racial commentary, humor, a love story, friendship and betrayal and the complexities involved in navigating the minefields of everyday relationships.