This book is the conceptual if not the chronological follow-up to 'How to Make Love to a Negro', and shares many of the same traits: it's oddly written, occasionally infuriating, and defiantly un-PC. Basically a series of loosely connected vignettes about America, success, race, and sex, it doesn't sound very unique but the writing puts it ahead of the pack - great, weird journalism, in the tradition of Hunter S. Thompson. It's not essential by any means, but it is worthwhile and it certainly shouldn't be out of print.

There is more substance in a single paragraph of this book than in ten thousand pages of Grisham or King. Reading this book will change how you think about America, fame, blondes, books, sex and popular culture. Every sentence is to be relished.

Setting a good mood for reading How to Make Love to a Negro(117 short pgs. 1987, but it seems earlier) included for me; a warm day; a bottle of cheap wine and a friendly understanding and appreciation about how people - guys I know (in their early 20's)- can be offensive and indearing simultaneously. "Things are going terribly wrong these days for a the contientious, professional black pick-up artist." (p17)Follow the men in this story around. Watch girls. love jazz. love books.(Did Freud really invent jazz in Totem and Taboo?) Drink. Talk about things that you don't know about with authority. Talk about what you know (yourself) with authority and pride. I enjoyed this book. The lists, the homage paid in references. young. hopeful.

Funny, witty, honest, philosphical, deep, critical, and daring are some words that descibe "How to make love to a Negro". A friend recommended it to me and I loved it. Basically the book is about two poor Black male Haitian immigrants living in Canada, sleeping with upperclass white women. The investigates the role of race, and class plays in sex. If you throw Black anger and White guilt in a bed, the result is a nueclear explosion, according to the author. If anyone wants to know how some black feel about sleeping with white women, you need to read this book. It's like social psychology mixed with a lot of humor, it's very funny and honest. The two black men are very intelligent and well read,and the main character most likely based on the author is very critical about the judeo-christian "civilized" society he so much wants to enter. I encourage men and women of all races, black, white in particular to read this book. Say what you want about it, but believe me, there are some black men that share the same thoughts as the author. I'd love to hear what a white man has to say after reading this book.

The first thing I have to tell you is that I read the book in its original version (French)and I found it hilariously funny. I think that all Danny Laferrière wanted by telling us the everyday life of Buba and the unnamed character, which is more likely to be him, is to make people react. He is attacking feminism by quoting, with is personal touch, Simonne de Beauvoir. He is laughing at white people by telling that they don't know how to make love to white women. He is poking fun at Negroes, etc. You must read this book the same as the author wrote it, just have fun and accept to laugh at yourself and at our society. One last thing, if you have some African-American friends you will finally understand some of their behaviours!

Allright, the catchy title (referring to Papa Doc Duvalier of Haiti) and cool cover enticed me into buying this slim, unsatisfying book. Apparently functioning as a sequel to the highly autobiographical "An Aroma of Coffee," it nominally follows one teenage boy's weekend in early 1970s Port-au-Prince. In actuality, the boy mostly functions as an observer of the whirlwind lives of a group of fine young women who live across the street from him. This is reflected by the more apt ordinal French title, which translates to "The Taste/Appetite of Young Girls." Theses women are a fairly unpleasant, nasty, catty, backstabbing lot, and are fairly hard to tell apart. Written as a series of scenes, the book conveys some atmosphere of the time, but not enough to make it worthwhile.

At first glance, this book seems like a simple rite-of-passage tale: young boy goes across the street to commune with gorgeous women and learn about sex and nail polish, or some such thing.

If you look deeper, however, it becomes clear that the journey depicted by LaFerriere is one of political discovery as well. "Papa", a seemingly minor chartacter, lurks in the background, somewhat menacing and completely disinterested in the drama surrounding him. While women kick, scream, yell, and turn on each other viciously, "Papa" (representing Haitian Dictator Duvalier) hardly looks up, hardly notices, does nothing when asked to intervene.

Read this way, the book offers insight into the burgeoning political mind of a young man in a terribly beautiful, terribly corrupt place.

The story goes limp a few times, but I am still there! I love that Dining With the Dictator, was written almost like a screenplay. And the different personalities of the girls clashes together so well that one can't help but to wonder what is going to happen next!

I enjoyed reading Eroshima. Basically it's a small book with a short story and several smaller stories and japanese poems, all revolving around the theme of sex and death (death due to the atomic bomb). The author Laferriere uses a lot of the same wit, reflection, insight and humor about sex and race in the first half of the book (How to make love to a Negro). In Eroshima the main character (most likely the author) has a sexual relationship with a japanese woman and refuses to get out of bed for days. That part of the book is interesting, however, Larerriere diverts into several directions with short stories that lack a real plot. Laferriere depicts senarios of men and women from around the globe, which is interesting, but I don't think he digs deep enough or give purpose to their relationship. Overall, I think he wrote a decent first half of a book, and he could have extended that insight and humor throughout the entire book.