Magically Black and Other Essays
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- USD 8.99
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- USD 8.99
Descripción editorial
*** Finalist for the PEN/Diamonstein-Spielvogel Award for the Art of the Essay****
****Semi-Finalist for the Thurber Prize for American Humor****
****Finalist for the New England Book Award****
****Longlisted for the Massachusetts Book Award****
In this engaging follow up to How to Make a Slave and Other Essays, the recipient of PEN New England Award for nonfiction and finalist for the National Book Award sharply examines and explains Black life and culture with equal parts candor and humor.
In Magically Black and Other Essays Jerald Walker elegantly blends personal revelation and cultural critique to create a bracing and often humorous examination of Black American life. He thoughtfully addresses the inherent complexities of topics as eclectic as incarceration, home renovations, gentrification, the crip walk, pimping, and the rise of the MAGA movement, approaching them through various Black perspectives, including husband, father, teacher, and writer. The collection’s overarching theme is captured in the titular essay, which examines the culture of heroic action African Americans created in response to their enslavement and oppression, giving proof to Albert Murray’s observation that the “fire in the forging process . . . for all its violence, does not destroy the metal that becomes the sword.”
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In these stirring pieces, Walker (How to Make a Slave and Other Essays), a creative writing professor at Emerson College, meditates on living as a Black man in America. In "The Curse," Walker recounts how his parents worshipped in the Radio Church of God, which was headed by a white televangelist who believed only the most "exceptional Blacks" could enter heaven. According to Walker, Black Trump supporters similarly attempt to prove they're "not really Black" by aligning themselves with a white supremacist leader. The author's sardonic humor is on display in "Good Help," which recounts how Walker hired a Black construction contractor whose lackluster work Walker had to critique constantly, prompting the contractor to accuse him of being racist. "That was true," Walker quips. "Had he not been Black, I would have fired him long ago." Other entries are more somber. For instance, Walker discusses in "Lost" how his teenage son Adrian's later-than-expected return home one night caused him to panic that Adrian had become a victim of police violence, leading Walker to wonder whether raising his sons to believe themselves safe in their majority-white neighborhood had made them oblivious to the dangers of racial violence. Delivering sharp assessments of America's racist mores and brimming with pathos and levity, this packs a punch.
