A timely and disquieting contribution to urgent conversations about race.
Potent essays on the toxicity of racism.
Revised and expanded from its original publication in 2013, this collection of forthright, spirited essays (six are new) moves back and forth among Jackson, Mississippi, where Laymon was born and grew up; Oberlin, where he completed college; Indiana, where he was awarded a fellowship in the creative writing program; Poughkeepsie, New York, where, for 14 years, he taught at Vassar; and Oxford, Mississippi, where he became the Grisham Writer in Residence at the University of Mississippi and where he now teaches. Taking varied forms, such as emails and letters, the collection, occasionally uneven, is never less than impassioned on matters of race, identity, and injustice. “I am a Black Mississippian,” Laymon declares. “I am a Black American. I pledge to never be passive, patriotic, or grateful in the face of American abuse. I pledge to always thoughtfully bite the self-righteous American hand that thinks it’s feeding us.” The author also pays homage to the “weird women warriors” who raised him: his grandmother, who buoyed his faith in himself, and his mother, who drilled into him “to never ever forget I was born on parole, which means no black hoodies in wrong neighborhoods, no jogging at night, hands in plain sight at all times in public, no intimate relationships with white women, never driving over the speed limit,” and, most crucially, “always remembering that no matter what, the worst of white folks will do anything to get you.” As a beginning writer, Laymon became disillusioned after an editor insisted that “Real Black writers make the racial, class, gender, and sexual politics of their work implicit. Very implicit. The age of the ‘race narrative’ is over, bro.” Determined to prove him wrong, the author makes these themes undeniably explicit, arguing for a culture that achieves what a professor acquaintance called “a principled and sustainable paradigm shift and nothing less.” Read this one, and then go back to Laymon’s remarkable memoir, Heavy.
A timely and disquieting contribution to urgent conversations about race.Pub Date: Nov. 10, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-982170-82-0
Page Count: 176
Publisher: Scribner
Review Posted Online: Sept. 28, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2020
Maher calls out idiocy wherever he sees it, with a comedic delivery that veers between a stiletto and a sledgehammer.
The comedian argues that the arts of moderation and common sense must be reinvigorated.
Some people are born snarky, some become snarky, and some have snarkiness thrust upon them. Judging from this book, Maher—host of HBO’s Real Time program and author of The New New Rules and When You Ride Alone, You Ride With bin Laden—is all three. As a comedian, he has a great deal of leeway to make fun of people in politics, and he often delivers hilarious swipes with a deadpan face. The author describes himself as a traditional liberal, with a disdain for Republicans (especially the MAGA variety) and a belief in free speech and personal freedom. He claims that he has stayed much the same for more than 20 years, while the left, he argues, has marched toward intolerance. He sees an addiction to extremism on both sides of the aisle, which fosters the belief that anyone who disagrees with you must be an enemy to be destroyed. However, Maher has always displayed his own streaks of extremism, and his scorched-earth takedowns eventually become problematic. The author has something nasty to say about everyone, it seems, and the sarcastic tone starts after more than 300 pages. As has been the case throughout his career, Maher is best taken in small doses. The book is worth reading for the author’s often spot-on skewering of inept politicians and celebrities, but it might be advisable to occasionally dip into it rather than read the whole thing in one sitting. Some parts of the text are hilarious, but others are merely insulting. Maher is undeniably talented, but some restraint would have produced a better book.
Maher calls out idiocy wherever he sees it, with a comedic delivery that veers between a stiletto and a sledgehammer.Pub Date: May 21, 2024
ISBN: 9781668051351
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: March 5, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A fierce, penetrating, and empowering call for change.
Artist and activist Vaid-Menon demonstrates how the normativity of the gender binary represses creativity and inflicts physical and emotional violence.
The author, whose parents emigrated from India, writes about how enforcement of the gender binary begins before birth and affects people in all stages of life, with people of color being especially vulnerable due to Western conceptions of gender as binary. Gender assignments create a narrative for how a person should behave, what they are allowed to like or wear, and how they express themself. Punishment of nonconformity leads to an inseparable link between gender and shame. Vaid-Menon challenges familiar arguments against gender nonconformity, breaking them down into four categories—dismissal, inconvenience, biology, and the slippery slope (fear of the consequences of acceptance). Headers in bold font create an accessible navigation experience from one analysis to the next. The prose maintains a conversational tone that feels as intimate and vulnerable as talking with a best friend. At the same time, the author's turns of phrase in moments of deep insight ring with precision and poetry. In one reflection, they write, “the most lethal part of the human body is not the fist; it is the eye. What people see and how people see it has everything to do with power.” While this short essay speaks honestly of pain and injustice, it concludes with encouragement and an invitation into a future that celebrates transformation.
A fierce, penetrating, and empowering call for change. (writing prompt) (Nonfiction. 14-adult)Pub Date: June 2, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-593-09465-5
Page Count: 64
Publisher: Penguin Workshop
Review Posted Online: March 14, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2020
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