An insightful work that connects contemporary culture to an old-school genre.
A blues scholar and musician navigates the muddy waters of the genre’s racial divisions.
Blues music, writes Gussow, is in the midst of a fraught debate between what he calls “Black bluesism,” the notion that only Black musicians have standing to play the music, and “blues universalism,” the idea that the music speaks to themes of heartbreak and loss everybody experiences. The former ideology denies contributions White artists have brought to the genre; the latter blithely ignores the music’s complex relationship to Black history. Gussow doesn’t pick a side, nor does he exactly synthesize the two. Rather, across 12 chapters (cannily called “bars”), he discusses the pervasive mythologies that surround blues music, its role in American literature, and the role of race in programming blues festivals. If it doesn’t quite add up to a cohesive argument, Gussow does do an intriguing job of troubling the waters. He counters ideas that the blues are rooted in Black suffering (blues songs are as much about pleasure as pain), that it was a rural form that migrated to the city (Bessie Smith’s experience suggests it was the other way around), and that W.C. Handy “invented” the blues; it’s more correct to say he established a particular version of it. The author is also insightful on how Black writers like Langston Hughes, Ralph Ellison, Richard Wright, and Zora Neale Hurston all integrated blues music in different ways—though Wright, for his part, was a terrible blues lyricist. Gussow discusses how he’s implicated in this as a White blues harmonica player who has spread the music’s word globally. Though he doesn't present a sustained grand unified theory about race and blues music, the book's range proves his point that the blues is an unsettled genre, open to a host of arguments.
An insightful work that connects contemporary culture to an old-school genre.Pub Date: Oct. 19, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-4696-6036-3
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Univ. of North Carolina
Review Posted Online: July 27, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
An honest and captivating investigation into human connection within an increasingly digital world.
A candid examination of the loneliness that lurks beyond our ubiquitous screens and the humanity that radiates in our bids for connection with one another.
Poet, essayist, and editor Dixon presents a series of braided essays that explore the loneliness that pervades a world that seems more globalized and interconnected than ever before. Throughout the book, the author cultivates a palpable sense of community with her readers, diving into the dark side of late-stage capitalist society. Examining the ease with which one can be forgotten in the digital age, she also looks at the unexpectedly intimate joys that can sprout when one chooses to be alone. With lyrical, memorable prose, Dixon cracks open the fear of not being remembered and invites readers to reexamine their own sense of self amid the chaos of the modern world. “I am overwhelmingly lonely. And I cannot believe that doesn’t matter and I will not believe there are not scores of others like me,” she writes. “I know there are those who feel the world is always just a little too far away or a little too close—never comfortable in either situation. Those who would love to be a part of all life has to offer fully, but something just doesn’t click.” The author emphasizes how being lonely is not something to be ignored or overlooked; it’s important and something worthy of being talked about openly. Dixon offers her own story and demons in order to bring attention to the adverse effects of loneliness during the recent pandemic as well as the need for empathy in a post-pandemic world. Though the author tackles difficult topics, she does it in an inviting way that allows readers to dissect their own struggles with loneliness. Her story is not only relatable, but significant, as she creates a sense of comfort for anyone who feels a little lonely sometimes.
An honest and captivating investigation into human connection within an increasingly digital world.Pub Date: Oct. 3, 2023
ISBN: 9781959030126
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Tin House
Review Posted Online: July 14, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2023
A clear and candid contribution to an essential conversation.
Straight talk to blacks and whites about the realities of racism.
In her feisty debut book, Oluo, essayist, blogger, and editor at large at the Establishment magazine, writes from the perspective of a black, queer, middle-class, college-educated woman living in a “white supremacist country.” The daughter of a white single mother, brought up in largely white Seattle, she sees race as “one of the most defining forces” in her life. Throughout the book, Oluo responds to questions that she has often been asked, and others that she wishes were asked, about racism “in our workplace, our government, our homes, and ourselves.” “Is it really about race?” she is asked by whites who insist that class is a greater source of oppression. “Is police brutality really about race?” “What is cultural appropriation?” and “What is the model minority myth?” Her sharp, no-nonsense answers include talking points for both blacks and whites. She explains, for example, “when somebody asks you to ‘check your privilege’ they are asking you to pause and consider how the advantages you’ve had in life are contributing to your opinions and actions, and how the lack of disadvantages in certain areas is keeping you from fully understanding the struggles others are facing.” She unpacks the complicated term “intersectionality”: the idea that social justice must consider “a myriad of identities—our gender, class, race, sexuality, and so much more—that inform our experiences in life.” She asks whites to realize that when people of color talk about systemic racism, “they are opening up all of that pain and fear and anger to you” and are asking that they be heard. After devoting most of the book to talking, Oluo finishes with a chapter on action and its urgency. Action includes pressing for reform in schools, unions, and local governments; boycotting businesses that exploit people of color; contributing money to social justice organizations; and, most of all, voting for candidates who make “diversity, inclusion and racial justice a priority.”
A clear and candid contribution to an essential conversation.Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-58005-677-9
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Seal Press
Review Posted Online: Oct. 8, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2017
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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