Kevin Young

Kevin Young and the Age of Euphemism

Kevin Young and the Age of Euphemism

In his eleventh book, Young recapitulates some of America’s most notorious humbugs, from P. T. Barnum’s Feejee Mermaid to James Frey’s A Million Little Pieces and Rachel Dolezal’s blackface. While his text primarily works to link the rise of hoaxes to “race and racialism,” Young also links this evolution to that of American media.

Review: TALES OF TWO AMERICAS edited by John Freeman
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Review: TALES OF TWO AMERICAS edited by John Freeman

Tale of Two Americas: Stories of Inequality in a Divided Nation  Edited by John Freeman Penguin; Sept 2017 252 pp; $17 Buy: paperback | eBook Reviewed by Anne Kniggendorf In his collection of 36 essays, poems, and stories entitled Tales of Two Americas: Stories of Inequality in a Divided Nation, John Freeman, curator of contemporary…

In Bookstores Near You: The Fire This Time: A New Generation Speaks about Race ed. by Jesmyn Ward
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In Bookstores Near You: The Fire This Time: A New Generation Speaks about Race ed. by Jesmyn Ward

Jesmyn Ward introduces The Fire This Time, an anthology of essays and poems of witness and dissent, by expressing her own commingled dismay and hope regarding race relations in America. This book, she says, gathers “the great thinkers and extraordinary voices” of her generation to consider racism, both subtle and egregious.

A rope pulled taught.
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Tension mounting

We spend our lives avoiding conflict, and then we reach academia. On the playground we’re told to make peace, but in the classroom we’re praised for our thesis statement that makes an “argument,” that introduces “tension,” that “complicates” a previous notion. Conflict becomes, all of a sudden, the engine of every good story. During discussion,…