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A review by astronotpoet
No Ashes in the Fire: Coming of Age Black and Free in America by Darnell L. Moore
5.0
This is a memoir chock-full of quotes that I read, read, and read again. Compelling, honest, and poignant. I read it in a day.
"It wasn't that I was too weak to simply think differently or give a middle finger to hateful people. I wanted to die, which is to say not live, which is to say not have to be strong enough all the time to fight to exist, which is to say fight at all, which is to say, I really want to live without having to fight so damn hard to exist" (154).
Also -- "Americans travel so quickly to the edges of their love" (224) - I need to ruminate on this more but feel like it is worth discussing.
Finally, highlighting the Toni Morrison quote he cites on page 41: "All water has a perfect memory and is forever trying to get back to where it was. Writers are like that: remembering where we were, that valley we ran through, what the banks were like, the light that was there and the route back to our original place. It is emotional memory—what the nerves and the skin remember as well as how it appeared. And a rush of imagination is our 'flooding'."
Magic.
"It wasn't that I was too weak to simply think differently or give a middle finger to hateful people. I wanted to die, which is to say not live, which is to say not have to be strong enough all the time to fight to exist, which is to say fight at all, which is to say, I really want to live without having to fight so damn hard to exist" (154).
Also -- "Americans travel so quickly to the edges of their love" (224) - I need to ruminate on this more but feel like it is worth discussing.
Finally, highlighting the Toni Morrison quote he cites on page 41: "All water has a perfect memory and is forever trying to get back to where it was. Writers are like that: remembering where we were, that valley we ran through, what the banks were like, the light that was there and the route back to our original place. It is emotional memory—what the nerves and the skin remember as well as how it appeared. And a rush of imagination is our 'flooding'."
Magic.