Mumbo Jumbo by Ishmael Reed not only stands out for its imaginative and unique story, with it's incorporation of music, culture, and religion, but also how it constantly subverts literary conventions. The formatting of the book feels almost abstract: the first chapter is before the credits, the fonts constantly change, chapters repeat, and photos are scattered throughout. The novel takes the rules that you can usually rely on a book to follow and turns them on its head. The breaking of literary conventions not only adds to the experience of reading the novel, but it also reflects themes of postmodernism. Mumbo Jumbo , like Ragtime , takes a period in history, and through a great amount of creative liberties, uses it to not only tell the story of that era, but also one that appears throughout history. Despite its fictional elements, such as made-up characters, breaking of the fourth wall, events and dialogue that is almost cartoonish, conspiracies,...