William Gardner Smith's 1948 novel about the black military experience in Berlin and Germany after WWII is old-fashioned in every way but quite good within these parameters. Character-driven and leisurely in its narrative pace, the story has a realistic hard edge that I admire, especially in its ending, where no cheap shots are taken. This would make a fine movie, and Spike Lee or someone should discover this writer.
I did get impatient with the old-fashioned crawl of story development and skimmed through sections that were particularly slow. There's a strong and nicely ambiguous love story here between the narrator and a German woman -- will he come back to her or not after discharge?
The exchange of dialogue that ends the novel epitomizes the contradiction blacks felt in feeling more "free" in the land of the Nazis than at home in America: to paraphrase, "I hear you're shipping home." "Right." "Tough." Tough is the last word of the story. Quite perfect.
There's a book-length study of Smith's work: Portrait of an Expatriate.
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