9David Crittendon's historic blues novella, THEN SEE IF I CARE: A Story About Bessie Smith, makes you feel her yearning down to your bones. This is no low-down, foot-dragging dirge. With prose that rings true to African American idiom yet resounds with Crittendon's singular poetic voice, THEN SEE IF I CARE is by turns defiant, bawdy, mocking, starkly bitter, and jubilant, initiating us into an encounter with the woman behind the legend.