What Doesn't Kill You Makes You Blacker: A Memoir in Essays
By Damon Young
Read by Damon Young
Unabridged
-
3 Formats: CD
-
3 Formats: Library CD
-
3 Formats: MP3 CD
-
ISBN: 9781982610661
-
ISBN: 9781982610654
-
ISBN: 9781982610678
Runtime: | 8.19 Hours |
Category: | Nonfiction/Biography |
Audience: | Adult |
Language: | English |
Summary
Summary
Longlisted for the 2020 PEN/Diamonstein-Spielvogel Award for the Art of the Essay
Finalist for the NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literary Work of Nonfiction
An Entertainment Weekly Pick of Best New Books of the Month
An NPR Best Book of the Year
A Finalist for the NAACP Image Award
Longlisted for the PEN/Diamonstein-Spielvogel Award for the Art of the Essay
An NPR Best Book of the Year
A Washington Independent Review of Books Favorite of the Year
From the cofounder of VerySmartBrothas.com, and one of the most read writers on race and culture at work today, a provocative and humorous memoir-in-essays that explores the ever-shifting definitions of what it means to be Black (and male) in America.
For Damon Young, existing while Black is an extreme sport. The act of possessing black skin while searching for space to breathe in America is enough to induce a ceaseless state of angst where questions such as “How should I react here, as a professional black person?” and “Will this white person’s potato salad kill me?” are forever relevant.
What Doesn’t Kill You Makes You Blacker chronicles Young’s efforts to survive while battling and making sense of the various neuroses his country has given him.
It’s a condition that’s sometimes stretched to absurd limits, provoking the angst that made him question if he was any good at the “being straight” thing, as if his sexual orientation was something he could practice and get better at, like a crossover dribble move or knitting; creating the farce where, as a teen, he wished for a white person to call him a racial slur just so he could fight him and have a great story about it; and generating the surreality of watching gentrification transform his Pittsburgh neighborhood from predominantly Black to “Portlandia . . . but with Pierogies.”
And, at its most devastating, it provides him reason to believe that his mother would be alive today if she were white.
From one of our most respected cultural observers, What Doesn’t Kill You Makes You Blacker is a hilarious and honest debut that is both a celebration of the idiosyncrasies and distinctions of Blackness and a critique of white supremacy and how we define masculinity.
Editorial Reviews
Editorial Reviews
Details
Details
Available Formats : | CD, Library CD, MP3 CD |
Category: | Nonfiction/Biography |
Runtime: | 8.19 |
Audience: | Adult |
Language: | English |
To listen to this title you will need our latest app
Due to publishing rights this title requires DRM and can only be listened to in the Blackstone Library app