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A review by das737
Don't Let Me Be Lonely: An American Lyric by Claudia Rankine
5.0
Prophetically published two months before Bush's reelection, Rankine's first "American lyric" grapples with, among many issues, the intellectual implications of the Bush presidency. Although certain elements of this book first felt less impactful to me than Citizen—most notably its lack of full-color photos—this somehow serves to augment Rankine's critique of American optimism, with the drab, monochromatic layout reflecting Bush-era post-truth, hopelessness. Yet Rankine's writing isn't just about the political moment the early 2000s: much of the book concerns the human response to death, coupled with an examination of pharmaceutical companies and mental health.
Haunting in its unflinching commitment to describing deaths—from cancer and Alzheimer's, in car crashes and terrorist attacks—Rankine ultimately arrives at a disarming conclusion, somehow foreshadowing not only Bush's reelection, but the subsequent attacks on American democracy that enabled the election of Trump. Admittedly, I found this book less electrifying when I first read it than when I read Citizen, but returning to it as the reality of Trump's first term in office has settled in, I found the book surprisingly relevant and urgent in the way it grapples with the construct of American optimism from the perspective of the marginalized.
Haunting in its unflinching commitment to describing deaths—from cancer and Alzheimer's, in car crashes and terrorist attacks—Rankine ultimately arrives at a disarming conclusion, somehow foreshadowing not only Bush's reelection, but the subsequent attacks on American democracy that enabled the election of Trump. Admittedly, I found this book less electrifying when I first read it than when I read Citizen, but returning to it as the reality of Trump's first term in office has settled in, I found the book surprisingly relevant and urgent in the way it grapples with the construct of American optimism from the perspective of the marginalized.