Amiable with Big Teeth: The Case of Claude McKay’s Last Novel

Archives from the Black Diaspora: A Roundtable Discussion

“…But JC points out that Amiable with Big Teeth is very much about the politics of the archive, too, with important plot threads having to do with the verification of identities and documents. 5 Interestingly, the character who ends up being the closest thing to the hero of the novel is a Black bibliophile and amateur historian, a self-styled "Professor" who seems to be intended as a fictionalized version of figures like Huggins and Seifert.…”

Media Studies 1932: Nancy Cunard in the Archive of Claude McKay

“…intertwined. "[56] Cloutier observes that McKay had characteristically taken care about factual representation throughout his writing career, and, like Edwards, notes the enthusiasm with which he composed his own archive. Such a historical sensibility also marks Amiable with Big Teeth, but as Cloutier notes, the possible unreliability of the archival record is a major theme of the novel, "evidentiary challenges surrounding authentication becom[ing] a prime concern of the narrative" ("Amiable with Big Teeth," 565).Media Studies 1932: Nancy Cunard in the Archive of Claude McKay | Modernism / Modernity Print+…”