Overview

A personal, social, and intellectual self-portrait of the beloved and enormously influential late Randall Kenan, a master of both fiction and nonfiction. Virtuosic in his use of literary forms, nurtured and unbounded by his identities as a Black man, a gay man, an intellectual, and a Southerner, Randall Kenan was known for his groundbreaking fiction. Less visible were his extraordinary nonfiction essays, published as introductions to anthologies and in small journals, revealing countless facets of Kenan's life and work. Flying under the radar, these writings were his most personal and autobiographical: memories of the three women who raised him--a grandmother, a schoolteacher great-aunt, and the great-aunt's best friend; recollections of his boyhood fear of snakes and his rapturous discoveries in books; sensual evocations of the land, seasons, and crops--the labor of tobacco picking and hog killing--of the eastern North Carolina lowlands where he grew up; and the food (oh the deliriously delectable Southern foods!) that sustained him. Here too is his intellectual coming of age; his passionate appreciations of kindred spirits as far-flung as Eartha Kitt, Gordon Parks, Ingmar Bergman, and James Baldwin. This powerful collection is a testament to a great mind, a great soul, and a great writer.

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Stirring, deeply thought-through essays and letters on topics ranging from sexuality and racism to foodways and the sense of place...A superb introduction to a writer deserving much greater recognition. -- Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

Author Information

Randall Kenan (1963-2020) was the former chancellor of the Fellowship of Southern Writers and a professor of English and comparative literature at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. He lived in Hillsborough, North Carolina. Tayari Jones is the author of Leaving Atlanta, The Untelling, Silver Sparrow, and An American Marriage. She holds degrees from Spelman College, Arizona State University, and the University of Iowa, and she serves on the MFA faculty at Rutgers. Tayari Jones is the author of Leaving Atlanta, The Untelling, Silver Sparrow, and An American Marriage. She holds degrees from Spelman College, Arizona State University, and the University of Iowa, and she serves on the MFA faculty at Rutgers. Jaime Lincoln Smith, a first-generation Jamaican American, raised in Bloomfield, Connecticut, is an actor, writer, producer, and educator. He has worked on Broadway, Off-Broadway, and in numerous regional theaters across the country. He has enjoyed success on television and film as well, guest-starring in shows such as Law & Order, Bull, and NCIS: New Orleans, to name a few. As a narrator, he is the recipient of a 2022 AudioFile Earphones Award as well as the 2022 Audie Award in the YA category.

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