How to Slowly Kill Yourself and Others in America
1st Edition
Published on 10. March 2016
160 pages
978-1-4088-6818-8 (ISBN)
Description
'I was stunned into stillness' Roxane Gay, author of Bad Feminist
'I've had guns pulled on me by four people under Central Mississippi skies - once by a white undercover cop, once by a young brother trying to rob me for the left-overs of a weak work-study check, once by my mother and twice by myself. Not sure how or if I've helped many folks say yes to life, but I've definitely aided in a few folks dying slowly in America, all without the aid of a gun'
Kiese Laymon grew up in Jackson, Mississippi. That was where he started to write and where he began to seek to create an honest account of living in the US, a country striving to declare itself multi-cultural, post-racial and mostly innocent. This is that account.
Drawing on his own personal experiences, these essays are Laymon's attempt to deal with many issues occupying America today, from race, identity and writing to music, celebrity and violence. Through letters between his own disparate family members, pleas to performers whose voices will never be heard again, recollections of his own failure to become a world-famous emcee, analysis of the growing culture of fear in the media and detailed accounts of his clashes with an education system that has both advanced and failed the generation he grew up in, Laymon gets closer not only to the truth behind himself, but to the promises behind the promised land.
Searing and passionate, this timely collection of essays introduces a vibrant new voice in US literature and offers a unique insight into the forces that are tearing America apart today.
'I've had guns pulled on me by four people under Central Mississippi skies - once by a white undercover cop, once by a young brother trying to rob me for the left-overs of a weak work-study check, once by my mother and twice by myself. Not sure how or if I've helped many folks say yes to life, but I've definitely aided in a few folks dying slowly in America, all without the aid of a gun'
Kiese Laymon grew up in Jackson, Mississippi. That was where he started to write and where he began to seek to create an honest account of living in the US, a country striving to declare itself multi-cultural, post-racial and mostly innocent. This is that account.
Drawing on his own personal experiences, these essays are Laymon's attempt to deal with many issues occupying America today, from race, identity and writing to music, celebrity and violence. Through letters between his own disparate family members, pleas to performers whose voices will never be heard again, recollections of his own failure to become a world-famous emcee, analysis of the growing culture of fear in the media and detailed accounts of his clashes with an education system that has both advanced and failed the generation he grew up in, Laymon gets closer not only to the truth behind himself, but to the promises behind the promised land.
Searing and passionate, this timely collection of essays introduces a vibrant new voice in US literature and offers a unique insight into the forces that are tearing America apart today.
More details
Edition
1. Auflage
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
ISBN-13
978-1-4088-6818-8 (9781408868188)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
Kiese Laymon
How to Slowly Kill Yourself and Others in America
Book
03/2016
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
€38.56
Article not available at the moment
Person
Kiese Laymon was born and raised in Jackson, Mississippi. He earned an MFA from Indiana University and is currently an Associate Professor of English at Vassar College. He has written essays and stories for numerous publications. Laymon was selected a member of the Root 100 in 2013 and 2014, and is the recipient of the 2015-2016 Grisham Writer in Residence Fellowship at the University of Mississippi. He is also the author of a novel, Long Division, which won the Saroyan International Prize for Writing.
@KieseLaymon / kieselaymon.com
@KieseLaymon / kieselaymon.com
Content
- Cover
- Title Page
- Dedication
- Table of Contents
- Author's Note
- Prologue: We Will Never Ever Know
- The Worst of White Folks
- How to Slowly Kill Yourself and Others in America
- Our Kind of Ridiculous
- Hip-Hop Stole My Southern Black Boy
- Echo: Mychal, Darnell, Kiese, Kai, and Marlon
- Kanye West and HaLester Myers Are Better at Their Jobs
- Reasonable Doubt and the Lost Presidential Debate of 2012
- Eulogy for Three Black Boys Who Lived
- You Are the Second Person
- Epilogue: My First Teachers-A Dialogue
- Acknowledgments
- About the Author
- eCopyright
