The book contains eleven chapters of original research whose objects of study span the fields of literary and cultural production, from novels, poetry, and plays to music, television, and film. This multimedia context is essential for understanding the development of African American literature in the 1990s, and each chapter provides an ample bibliography of primary and secondary sources for interdisciplinary study of the decade. The book's conceptual coherence is enhanced by dividing the eleven chapters into three thematic clusters: 'Culture, Commerce, and Criticism,' 'Gender, Genre, and Generations,' and 'Poetry, Performance, and Parody.' These clusters draw connections not only between their constituent chapters but also across media and bibliographies, bringing literary, historical, discursive, and cultural analysis to bear on the Black 1990s. The book's rationale and structure are clearly described in the introduction, which doubles as an outline of each chapter's argument and place within the volume.