On Mahogany and Blacktop

It is not a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a motorcycle must be in want of a wife, and yet Carlyle Black, protagonist of George Elliott Clarke’s new novel, spends a good deal of time in pursuit of one. Although it opens with musings on the hard truths of pavement and the allure of the open road, The Motorcyclist is essentially the story of courtship, a reflection on “Race and Romance in an era when Chance governed family planning and Prejudice determined social status.”

Clarke notes in his introduction that Carl’s story was inspired in part by his father’s diary, but The Motorcyclist, with its dense, rich layers of social commentary, historical allusions and compulsive wordplay, transcends family history. Although the storyline follows a year in Carl’s life, the narrator cuts in frequently, situating the race relations, class lines and sexual mores of 1959 Nova Scotia in their larger...