I like to read outside of my comfort zone. But this far out I probably needed a bathysphere. And now I got the bends. 
 Imagine you're reading On Cheshil Beach by Ian McEwan, and after the famous wedding night scene a friend of Florence told her that her and Edward should really go and see this highly recommended marriage guidance councellor, so they decide to give it a shot, and it turns out to be a guy called Ian McEwan, who is this lovely wise person who they instantly trust. And he dispenses his wisdom to them. And their lives are better. Then imagine Ian McEwan writes an 80 page commentary on his novel and includes it as an appendix, pointing out for less perspicacious readers who represents what and the moral inferences you should be - er - inferring as you read. 
 Would we be telling Ian McEwan that he had an ego the size of the Titanic and clearly just as fragile? And that he had zero trust in his readers? And that he'll never win the Booker Prize again? Yes, I think so. 
 So all of these things are true about The Coldest Winter Ever but as well as being true they're completely irrelevant. When Sister Souljah writes herself into her own novel as a character and then explains point by point what her novel means and what all the characters represent in the appendix at the back, your jaw drops and you realise you're not in Kansas anymore. (When I say Kansas, I don't mean literally Kansas, you see, I mean we're not having the usual novel-as-art reading experience. Did you understand that's what I meant? Good, let's hurry on then.) 
 So this book is Moll Flanders meets The Wire. Street-smart young hussy has to hustle like crazy when her entire family is taken into custody because her daddy is a drug baron, and she's left high & dry with no dough and nowhere to stay. Much hilarity ensues, life lessons are learned. And when Sister Souljah is around, boy, those lessons are LEARNED and there will be QUESTIONS AFTERWARDS. 
 I DIDN'T KNOW WHO SISTER SOULJAH WAS BUT NOW I DO 
 I did some googling and holy shit! Where have I been all this time? Don't I read the papers? 
 SS turns out to be an amazing and extremely formidable intellect who is not just a novelist but a major social activist, former hip hop artist (which is where the daft name came from, she's really Lisa Williamson), film producer, lecturer, and all round 24-hour opinionator about race relations in America, as for instance in the following well known quote 
 "I have never met a good white person." 
 In 1992 she was interviewed after the LA riots in April 1992 : 
 SS : Black people from the underclass and the so-called lower class do not respect the institutions of white America, which is why you can cart as many black people out on the television as you want to tell people in the lower and underclass that that was stupid, but they don't care what you say. You don't care about THEIR lives, haven't added anything to the quality of their lives, haven't affectuated anything for the quality of their lives, and then expect them to respond to your opinions which mean absolutely nothing? Why would they? 
 Q: But even the people themselves who were perpetrating that 
 violence, did they think it was wise? Was that wise, reasoned 
 action? 
 A: Yeah, it was wise. I mean, if black people kill black 
 people every day, why not have a week and kill white people? You 
 understand what I'm saying? In other words, white people, this 
 government, and that mayor were well aware of the fact that black 
 people were dying every day in Los Angeles under gang violence. 
 So if you're a gang member and you would normally be killing 
 somebody, why not kill a white person? 
 No surprise, this got her into so much trouble and I can imagine invitation lists were quickly examined and if her name was found on them a big bold line was drawn through it. Vilified by all and sundry, she made her one and only album, 360 Degrees of Power, later the same year, which contains this track - MTV banned it and I can kind of see why! 
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dcWgPE... 
 And finally! 
 I found this one youtube clip of her in some towering rant, as usual, and you have to check it out. I don't think I've ever heard a public speaker so articulately reducing a room full of the great and the good to trembling awestruck silence. This woman is truly amazing. 
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E-Dzei...