The Kind of Light That Shines on Texas

by Reginald McKnight

In voices that are hip and raunchy, bemused and sardonic, award-winning writer Reginald McKnight conjures a chorus of narratives that reveal the African-American middle class to be a crucible of human experience. Outrageously inventive, disarmingly comic, and urgently disturbing, this collection brings a disparate cast of characters face to face with fault lines of identity and the limbo of living between cultures.

The Kind of Light That Shines on Texas was first published by Little, Brown and Company in 1992. This edition is published in cooperation with the Living Writers course at Colgate University.

Genres: Short Stories, African American

208 pages, Paperback

First published December 22, 1992

Reviews

[Scott Done]

**read for my short essay class**

[Frackie]

Originally read for class. In Marvin we trust. Fuck around you're gonna find out.

[aggie]

Intelligent use of dialect and allegory. But beware: each story in this collection is as much a vortex as is a down comforter on a queen sized bed in a mountaintop lodge - the stories are so engaging that new sentences cannot cross your eyes soon enough and before you realize it, forty minutes have passed, your breathing is back to normal, you've reached the end of the story and you look up and realize the moon's taken over the sky.

[Aneesa]

First I read the title story, which is great, then I read the first story, which was not worth it, and then I had to return it to the library.

[Karen Carlson]

He wrote Float (Pushcart 2018) and the title story (Catherine Project Short Story reading group 2022, story from early 90s) both of which I loved, so I want to read something else. He has two story collections, this and Moustapha's Eclipse, and two novels, He Sleeps and I Get on the Bus; he seems to like anthropologists.

[Kayley]

read for school

[Greg]

Such a deeply emotional, raw insight into an overlooked human experience.

[Lucy Yeomans]

A collection of engaging stories with some profound moments. Some of them were a bit intense for my taste in light reading, but well written overall.

[Cora]

The Kind of Light that Shines On Texas is a collection of short stories by Reginald McKnight. The stories are about middle class African Americans characters in the United States, mostly during the 60s and 70s (although one story takes place in a fairy tale land and one story takes place in the near future). The stories deal with themes of identity and ethics. The stories are often raw with characters using bad language, drugs, and alcohol. My favorite story was the title story about being one of only a few African American students in a sixth grade class in Texas during the 60s. The reader not only feels the tension between the white and black students, but also the main characters struggle with what he feels about himself in relation to his other African American classmates. The characters were not always likable, but they were realistic and each one revealed something about growing up during this time in America. I would definitely recommend others check out Mr. McKnight's work.

[William]

I loved this book

[Cattii]

i liked this book but the plot was to long to work with. if the authour had cut some bits out it would be better. its a good book otherwise however the end is a bit boring.

cattii

[Ken Titt]

Reginald McKnight's "Into Night" was by far the best of these seven stories. Heart wrenching and powerful.