Black on Black

November 7, 2022
Novelist Black (Don’t Cry for Me) mixes memoir, history, and cultural criticism in these powerful essays on the experiences of being a queer Black person in America. In “When I Was a Boy,” Black recalls how he succumbed to the pressure he felt growing up in rural Arkansas to conform to stereotypical notions of masculinity (“I soon learned that people wanted unenlightened black boys.... Half-drunk, baby-producing black boys”), until he went to college and “life-changing books found me and restored my senses.” Elsewhere, Black analyzes the strengths and weaknesses of the Black church, claiming that its historical role providing “poor, disenfranchised black people imaginative context wherein to construct identity and communal value” is undercut by its “ubiquitous patriarchy,” antagonism toward Africanist traditions, and insistence that Black people be “‘presentable’ before white eyes.” Other topics include the effects of white supremacy on self-image; the “historical significance” of the TV show Pose; the “life-altering” experience of attending an HBCU, where many students encounter for the first time “the assumption of their intelligence”; and how James Baldwin became “caught in an interstitial space between black rejection and white objectification.” Intimate, wide-ranging, and sharply argued, this is an inspirational call for a more inclusive vision of Black community. Agent: Jim McCarthy, Dystel, Goderich & Bourret.