One Hundred Dollar Misunderstanding

This book right here was Robert Gower's first novel, he wrote it in 1961. And I've read plenty of novels that were written a long time ago, but it's been a while since I actually held a copy in my hands that was printed and sold half a century ago. The condition is decent with no ripped-off pages, not even dog ears, only the colour of the pages has changed, I guess. But that doesn't change anything about the contents, the words, the story. 

What I like about it is the switch of voices. The whole book is a back-and-forth storytelling from two very very different perspectives. The One Hundred Dollar Misunderstanding deals, more so than anything else, with racism in the US. It's a satirical approach on a serious topic. It's written in two super distinct voices, and in a spoken manner. Both, J.C. and Kitty, tell their stories as if speaking on the phone. Sometimes not easy to read, but super fun.

The story, however, was originally not well received. So much so that American publishers rejected it and the manuscript was sent to Europe. That's why it was first published in French. It was so popular that it soon went over to the UK where it was printed in English for the first time. That finally made it over to New York and caused a little sensation. It appeared in 1962 as a paperback edition, one of which somehow landed on my bookshelf.