American literature celebrates seekers. Think of the iconoclastic characters from Jack Kerouac’s “ On the Road ” or Walker Percy’s “ The Moviegoer. ” These restless, often white, literary wanderers search for an ineffable freedom or salvation outside the material trappings of the American Dream.
Gayl Jones considers the fate of a Black seeker in her novel “ The Unicorn Woman .” After a World War II tour of duty as a cook, Buddy Ray Guy (not to be confused with blues legend Buddy Guy) lingered in France post-war. Now, back home in Jim Crow 1950s Kentucky, he works in tractor repairs.
It’s a marginal job with little room for growth, typical of the limited options for Black men at that time, but its flexibility grants him time to develop and pursue leisure interests. Buddy’s wanderlust has a specific focus. Spellbound by the Unicorn Woman, a human oddity exhibited as a carnival attraction, Buddy declares that she is “the only woman in the world.
A real beauty. And the funny thing about it, the horn didn’t disturb her beauty; it enhanced it.” After circling her multiple times, he “felt indefatigable.
” Other spectators asked whether she looked more human or mythical. One claimed she looked like Billie Holiday. Tragic figure or con artist, the Unicorn Woman seized Buddy’s imagination.
“Whenever I met a new woman, I couldn’t help measuring her against the unicorn one,” he muses. Naturally, the Unicorn Woman stands for more than the woman herself.