A swift, inspired, and thought-provoking examination of the intersections of heroism, racial identity, and diversity.
A concise, mindful discussion of race, culture, and the politics of celebrity.
In his chapbook-length essay, London-based poet and critic Harris (All This Is Implied, 2017) brings two well-known personalities into vivid focus to compare and contrast their experiences as biracial “supermen” within their own separate arenas. The author explores the lives and legacies of Barack Obama and Keanu Reeves from the perspective of their mixed-race heritages and how that particular aspect drew power, honor, and visibility to their work and to their names. The author believes many mixed-race people approach society with hesitation and perpetual confusion, much like he does as a lifelong Londoner of mixed Indonesian and Dutch heritage. Harris envisions mixed-race supermen, embodied by Obama and Reeves, as those who manage to defy simplistic stereotyping and have figured out “how to make their confusion heroic, to embody contradiction.” The author recalls his fascination with the former president as a proud, intelligent politician who “not only looked different, but talked beautifully—and knowingly—of his mixed-race upbringing. Here was a story that was long and painful but seemed to bend implacably toward justice.” As the iconic Neo character in the Matrix films, Reeves can also be considered a mixed-race superhero, fending off multiplying CGI agents of doom and attempting to survive amid legions of detractors. Where Harris shines brightest and is most convincing is when he integrates into the discussion his personal history, heritage, and racial impressions and experiences. He cites violent crimes occurring in the 1980s and ’90s whose investigations were hindered and ultimately mishandled due to racial profiling as well as his frustrations with his parents’ indifference when confronted with racial bias in various scenarios. An observant writer, Harris shares illuminating intellectual analysis that incorporates philosophical introspection (he notes Reeves’ “Nietzschean streak”), references to Greek mythology, and American politics in a stimulating narrative of civil rights activism, pop-culture heroism, and the multilayered, heroic struggle of people of color.
A swift, inspired, and thought-provoking examination of the intersections of heroism, racial identity, and diversity.Pub Date: July 2, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-61219-789-0
Page Count: 128
Publisher: Melville House
Review Posted Online: May 21, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2019
This moving, potent testament might have been titled “Black Lives Matter.” Or: “An American Tragedy.”
The powerful story of a father’s past and a son’s future.
Atlantic senior writer Coates (The Beautiful Struggle: A Father, Two Sons, and an Unlikely Road to Manhood, 2008) offers this eloquent memoir as a letter to his teenage son, bearing witness to his own experiences and conveying passionate hopes for his son’s life. “I am wounded,” he writes. “I am marked by old codes, which shielded me in one world and then chained me in the next.” Coates grew up in the tough neighborhood of West Baltimore, beaten into obedience by his father. “I was a capable boy, intelligent and well-liked,” he remembers, “but powerfully afraid.” His life changed dramatically at Howard University, where his father taught and from which several siblings graduated. Howard, he writes, “had always been one of the most critical gathering posts for black people.” He calls it The Mecca, and its faculty and his fellow students expanded his horizons, helping him to understand “that the black world was its own thing, more than a photo-negative of the people who believe they are white.” Coates refers repeatedly to whites’ insistence on their exclusive racial identity; he realizes now “that nothing so essentialist as race” divides people, but rather “the actual injury done by people intent on naming us, intent on believing that what they have named matters more than anything we could ever actually do.” After he married, the author’s world widened again in New York, and later in Paris, where he finally felt extricated from white America’s exploitative, consumerist dreams. He came to understand that “race” does not fully explain “the breach between the world and me,” yet race exerts a crucial force, and young blacks like his son are vulnerable and endangered by “majoritarian bandits.” Coates desperately wants his son to be able to live “apart from fear—even apart from me.”
This moving, potent testament might have been titled “Black Lives Matter.” Or: “An American Tragedy.”Pub Date: July 8, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-8129-9354-7
Page Count: 176
Publisher: Spiegel & Grau
Review Posted Online: May 5, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
Dramatic, immersive, and wanting—much like desire itself.
Based on eight years of reporting and thousands of hours of interaction, a journalist chronicles the inner worlds of three women’s erotic desires.
In her dramatic debut about “what longing in America looks like,” Taddeo, who has contributed to Esquire, Elle, and other publications, follows the sex lives of three American women. On the surface, each woman’s story could be a soap opera. There’s Maggie, a teenager engaged in a secret relationship with her high school teacher; Lina, a housewife consumed by a torrid affair with an old flame; and Sloane, a wealthy restaurateur encouraged by her husband to sleep with other people while he watches. Instead of sensationalizing, the author illuminates Maggie’s, Lina’s, and Sloane’s erotic experiences in the context of their human complexities and personal histories, revealing deeper wounds and emotional yearnings. Lina’s infidelity was driven by a decade of her husband’s romantic and sexual refusal despite marriage counseling and Lina's pleading. Sloane’s Fifty Shades of Grey–like lifestyle seems far less exotic when readers learn that she has felt pressured to perform for her husband's pleasure. Taddeo’s coverage is at its most nuanced when she chronicles Maggie’s decision to go to the authorities a few years after her traumatic tryst. Recounting the subsequent trial against Maggie’s abuser, the author honors the triumph of Maggie’s courageous vulnerability as well as the devastating ramifications of her community’s disbelief. Unfortunately, this book on “female desire” conspicuously omits any meaningful discussion of social identities beyond gender and class; only in the epilogue does Taddeo mention race and its impacts on women's experiences with sex and longing. Such oversight brings a palpable white gaze to the narrative. Compounded by the author’s occasionally lackluster prose, the book’s flaws compete with its meaningful contribution to #MeToo–era reporting.
Dramatic, immersive, and wanting—much like desire itself.Pub Date: July 9, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-4516-4229-2
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Avid Reader Press
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
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