MEMORY OF THE ROARING 1960sIN ALICE RANDALL’S NOVEL “REBEL YELL”

Анотація

The paper discusses the novel “Rebel Yell” by the popular African American writer Alice Randall,
in which she goes back to recent American history trying to understand the tendencies in the attitudes of
Afro-Americans that were determined by the turbulent events of the 1960s–70s on the example of the novel’s
protagonist Abel Jones. Memory, which is present in the reminiscences of Randall’s characters, helps to reveal
the gap between the reality and people’s expectations that explains human traumas and accounts for the split
in people’s psyche. The novel delves into the problems of a person who is torn between two communities –
black and white, trying to adapt to the norms of the white middle class, which results in a disaster. Key
themes of the novel are discussed, and an outline of central events that contributed to the transformation of
the protagonist’s character is given. A link between the recent US past and the complex present is drawn.
Keywords: contemporary African American novel, the roaring 1960s, the Civil Rights movement,
race relations.