I Just Keep Talking
A Life in Essays
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- $14.99
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- $14.99
Publisher Description
From the New York Times bestselling author of The History of White People and Old in Art School, a finalist for the NBCC Award, comes a comprehensive new collection of essays spanning art, politics, and the legacy of racism that shapes American history as we know it.
Throughout her prolific writing career, Nell Painter has published works on such luminaries as Sojourner Truth, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Malcolm X. Her unique vantage on American history pushes the boundaries of personal narrative and academic authorship. Led by an unbridled curiosity for her subjects, Painter asks readers to reconsider ideas of race, politics, and identity. I Just Keep Talking assembles her writing for the first time into a single volume, displaying the breadth and depth of Painter’s decades-long historical inquiry and the evolution of Black political thought—and includes a dazzling introduction and coda being published for the first time in this collection. From her mining of figures like Carrie Buck and Martin Delaney for their resonance today, to a deep dive into the history of exclusion through the work of Toni Morrison, to a discussion of the American political landscape after the 2016 election, Painter nimbly portrays the trials of a country frequently at war with itself.
Along with Painter’s writing, this collection offers her original artwork, threaded throughout the book as counterpoint and emphasis. Her visual art shows a deft mind turning toward the tragedy and humor of her subjects; pulling from newspapers, personal records, and original sketches, Painter’s artwork testifies to the dialectic of tremendous change and stasis that continues to shape American history.
These essays resist easy answers in favor of complexity, the inescapable sense of our country’s potential thwarted by its failures. This collection will surely solidify Painter’s place among the finest critics and writers of the last half century.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
This brilliant compendium by Princeton University historian Painter (The History of White People) brings together previously published writings on American history, politics, and whiteness from throughout her career. Several pieces explore the legacy of slavery, including a 2000 introduction to Harriet Jacobs's Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl in which Painter argues that the 1861 autobiography's descriptions of sexual abuse at the hands of Jacobs's master made the book one of the first to address the gendered impact of slavery. Decades-old selections remain insightful and timely. For instance, contemporary debates over school history curricula echo in a 1982 essay exploring how white scholars' opposition to studies celebrating Black resistance have led to racist textbook portrayals of Black people as dependent on whites. Drawing illuminating historical parallels to the present, the 2022 essay "From 1872 to 1876 in the Space of One Year" likens the post–George Floyd racial reckoning to the promise of Reconstruction, but warns that calls for Democrats to "jettison voting rights in order to court White voters without college degrees" risks repeating the tragedy of the "Redemption" era, which rolled back Black civil rights starting in the late 1870s. Razor-sharp analysis lights up every page, and the bountiful images of multimedia artwork by Painter add a personal touch. This affirms Painter's reputation as a historian and political commentator par excellence. Photos.
