Mumbo Jumbo is a book with a great many characters. Some of them, including President Warren Harding and James Weldon Johnson, are actual historical figures. The overwhelming majority of characters are fictional, and two characters are at its center. The hero is PaPa LaBas, a HooDoo detective who, with his colleague Black Herman, tries to uncover the origins of Jes Grew and devise ways to keep the "anti-plague" alive. LaBas and Black Herman use conjuring, exorcising and healing in their work, and as a result, LaBas' critics call his headquarters Mumbo Jumbo Kathedral. Critic Henry Louis Gates, Jr. claims PaPa LaBas is "the chief detective in hard-and-fast pursuit of both Jes Grew and its Text.

LaBas is the Afro-American trickster figure from black sacred tradition. His surname, of course, is French for "over there,' and his presence unites "over there' (Africa) with "right here.' He is...