Seed

"Seed and the corrosive power of memory. The story follows the path of Ulysses Dove, a young African-American dancer struggling to escape the harrowing images of a past dominated by a brutal father, and a grandfather who left deeper and more subtle scars. For Ulysses, memories are like boxes - in each "a bit of ugliness, a bit of pain" - kept apart to break the methodical urgency that links the past to the present. Stranded temporarily in North Africa following a cancelled dance engagement in Morocco, Ulysses is befriended by an American woman and her companion to whom he slowly but irresistibly begins to reveal the dark secrets that haunt him. As the memories take over and his personality begins to unravel, Ulysses tries desperately to hold onto himself and the things around him. Recurring images of abuse, guilt, and revenge increasingly dominate his consciousness and the anguished story that he relates. Written in a tense, halting style that mirrors the strained, unsettling urgency of its protagonist, Seed weaves its competing narratives together into a singular voice in which abrasive violence and lyric beauty frequently overlap, and in which violence and redemption converge toward a common destiny."--BOOK JACKET.