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A review by mcf
The Fire This Time: A New Generation Speaks about Race by Jesmyn Ward
4.0
Any new book about race in modern America is immediately thrust into great, potentially intimidating company, a group headlined by Between the World and Me and Invisible Man Got the Whole World Watching. If that new book about race also happens to bear a title that intentionally echoes that of one of the seminal books on that topic, it's placed in even more elite company. All of this is simply to say that, fairly or not, expectations (mine, at least) are high for The Fire This Time.
And there are certainly standout essays therein, particularly Kiese Laymon's gorgeous "Da Art of Storytellin' (a prequel)", about his grandmother, OutKast, and love, Garnette Cadogan's "Black and Blue," on walking while black, Daniel José Older's glorious letter to his wife, "This Far, Notes on Love and Revolution," and "Blacker than Thou," Kevin Young's hilarious, brutal essay on Rachel Dolezal and blackness. That said, at times I found myself irrationally disappointed by the book. None of the essays in the opening section on history, for example, grabbed me like I'd hoped, and the stellar nature of the specific works mentioned above inevitably created unreasonable expectations for the collection as whole (as if it is even possible to create consistency of tone, manner, and intensity across a collection of work by 15 different thinkers).
Definitely recommended, for its perspective on America today, and for the connection that each reader will no doubt make with a handful of the included works. Many thanks to NetGalley and Scribner for the ARC.
And there are certainly standout essays therein, particularly Kiese Laymon's gorgeous "Da Art of Storytellin' (a prequel)", about his grandmother, OutKast, and love, Garnette Cadogan's "Black and Blue," on walking while black, Daniel José Older's glorious letter to his wife, "This Far, Notes on Love and Revolution," and "Blacker than Thou," Kevin Young's hilarious, brutal essay on Rachel Dolezal and blackness. That said, at times I found myself irrationally disappointed by the book. None of the essays in the opening section on history, for example, grabbed me like I'd hoped, and the stellar nature of the specific works mentioned above inevitably created unreasonable expectations for the collection as whole (as if it is even possible to create consistency of tone, manner, and intensity across a collection of work by 15 different thinkers).
Definitely recommended, for its perspective on America today, and for the connection that each reader will no doubt make with a handful of the included works. Many thanks to NetGalley and Scribner for the ARC.