Reviewed by: Hotbeds: Black-White Love in Novels from the United States, Africa and the Caribbean Samantha Manchester Earley Thielmann, Pia . 2004. Hotbeds: Black-White Love in Novels from the United States, Africa and the Caribbean. Zomba, Malawi: Kachere Series. 398 pp. $34.95 (paper). In Hotbeds, Pia Thielmann examines love relationships between black and white partners in novels from the United States, Africa, and the Caribbean. She attempts to show that "the acceptance of interracial love relationships [is] an obvious form of 'relating' between the two races [and] is a touchstone of progress away from, stagnation in, or regression back toward the centuries-old American history of racism" with its other manifestations of discrimination, oppression, and violence (p. 12–13). She describes her process and argument further: "by comparing the American experience with the African and Caribbean, 'the slave triangle,' I demonstrate that slavery and later colonialism in Africa and the Caribbean are influential factors on interracial love" (p. 13). That identity politics influences persons [End Page 129] involved in a relationship where one person is a member of an historically oppressed group while the other is a member of the majority oppressors is fairly obvious. Where Thielmann's argument shows potential is in the multiple layers (race, gender, class) with which she attempts to analyze the characters in the novels. Hotbeds is extremely well-organized. It is divided into three parts: the United States, Africa, and the Caribbean. Each part is subdivided into background issues, novels by black men, novels by black women, novels by white men, novels by white women, and a conclusion. The book is then wrapped up with a general conclusion and an extensive bibliography. The sections devoted to background issues are good general overviews of the social, historical, and political climates involved in interracial love/sex relationships in the regions being covered. Thielmann's theoretical approach appears to be drawn mainly from bell hooks, a social critic in the United States. In fact, Thielmann quotes extensively from her All About Love: New Visions (2000) and Ain't I a Woman: Black Women and Feminism (1981). She also quotes from many of hooks's other works, and often brings up her point that, for any love relationship to occur between equals, both parties have to be in possession of a "decolonized" mind, aware of the social and historical significance of the ways both parties have been culturally indoctrinated; at the same time, both must be keenly self-aware of their cultural indoctrination and guard against descent into anything other than an "I-Thou" relationship. This literary analysis would work better if Thielmann had done more to critique both the term and the ways in which the authors of the novels had constructed (or deconstructed) the colonized and uncolonized minds of their characters. The prose is cumbersome, with Thielmann's analysis of the novels quite often reading more like a plot summary. That being said, Hotbeds is a good general introduction to a great many novels that have interracial love or sex as a primary or secondary focus. In that sense, Hotbeds would be an ideal choice for that scholar or student who was just developing an interest in the American, African, or Caribbean literary angle of interracial love, marriage, or dating. Thielmann outlines present-day social issues involved in interracial dating or marriage, quoting well-known social critics, psychologists, and sociologists on the personal and political ramifications of loving across racial boundaries. Therefore, the book might also be an interesting read for a person involved in an interracial relationship, but only if that person had no prior scholarly training on the subject. It would appear from textual references, such as "friends and fellow students" and others, that Thielmann has published her Ph.D. dissertation unrevised (p. 12). As those who have written dissertations know, dissertations can become unwieldy in their material and focus. Almost four hundred pages long and filled mainly with plot summaries, Hotbeds is definitely unwieldy. A more streamlined, focused, and critical look at fewer novels would have improved this book considerably. Samantha Manchester Earley Indiana University Southeast Copyright © 2006 Indiana University Press