both inter- and intra-familial dynamics, life during
and in the aftermath of the Great Migration and
the Great Depression, and rural versus urban life-
styles for African Americans during the first part of
the 20th century. Philosophically, Turpin explores
many attitudes toward life held by African Ameri-
cans from before the Civil War through the Great
Depression. Perhaps the most important of these is
the attitude toward education as a panacea for the
social and economic ills African Americans faced.
The Rootless, Turpin’s last published fictional
work, focused on slave practices on Maryland’s
Eastern Shore. Considered with his two previous
works, The Rootless completes an interesting tril-
ogy that probes the incapacitating effects of his-
tory on the black man in America.
Turpin’s works remain obscure for the most
part, garnering little critical attention during the
time of their publication and in subsequent reex-
aminations of the period or the African-American
canon. Even so, these works contribute to the di-
versity of the African-American literary canon and
offer yet another view of black life in America.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Carson, Warren J. “Four Black American Novelists,
1935–1941.” Master’s thesis. Atlanta University,
1975.
Ford, Nick Aaron. “Tribute to Waters Turpin.” College
Language Association Journal 12 (March 1969):
281–83.
Reid, Margaret Ann. “Water Turpin.” In The Oxford
Companion to African American Literature, edited
by William Andres, et al., 739–740. New York: Ox-
ford University Press, 1997.
Warren J. Carson
Tyree, Omar (1969– )
Novelist, performance poet, and publisher, Phila-
delphia-born Tyree graduated from prestigious
Central High School there in 1987. Although he
began his undergraduate studies pursuing a career
in pharmacy at the University of Pittsburgh, he
discovered his talents as a writer and, at the end of
his freshman year, transferred to Howard Univer-
sity, where he majored in journalism. By the end
of his senior year, Tyree had gained recognition as
a columnist for the school’s award-winning news-
paper, The Hilltop, for which he became the first
student in the paper’s history to have a featured
column, “Food for Thought.”
Tyree began his professional career as a journal-
ist and editor with Washington, D.C.’s The Capitol
Spotlight, a weekly newspaper. He continued in
journalism by working for News Dimension and
Washington View Magazine before founding his
own publishing company, MARS Production, and
turning to a career as a novelist and publisher. He
self-published his first novel, Colored, On (a) White
Campus (1992), with funds borrowed from fam-
ily members and friends. Tyree used the royalties
to publish Flyy Girl (1993); he had written both
novels by his senior year at Howard University. His
initial publishing success caught the attention of
and won him a formal contract with mainstream
publisher Simon & Schuster, which republished
his best-selling Flyy Girl in 1996 in hardcover.
Today, Tyree, who is often described as a man on a
mission given his goal of publishing a Tyree clas-
sics series, is included in the ranks of such popular
African-American best sellers as E. LYNN HARRIS,
ERIC JEROME DICKEY, CARL WEBER, TERRY MCMIL-
LAN, and ZANE, whose works fill display shelves and
windows in popular bookstores.
Tyree’s novels include Capitol City: The Diary of
a D.C. Underworld (1993); Battlezone (1994); Flyy
Girl (1996); Capital City (1997); A Do Right Man
(1997); Single Mom (1998); For the Love of Money
(2000), which made the New York Times Bestseller
List one week after publication; Sweet St. Louis
(2000); Just Say No (2001); Leslie (2002); College
Boy (2002); and The Boss Lady (2005). Tyree has
also published novels under the pseudonym The
Urban Griot, including The Underground (2001),
College Boy (2003), and One Crazy Ass Night
(2003).
Set in a Philadelphia that beat to the rhythm
of hip-hop culture during the ostentatious 1980s,
Flyy Girl is a coming-of-age story of Tracy Ellison,
who grows up in a middle-class family that lives in
Germantown. Although her parents are separated,
Tracy has a fairly stable family life, which is ensured514 Tyree, Omar