Join us on a literary world trip!
Add this book to bookshelf
Grey
Write a new comment Default profile 50px
Grey
Subscribe to read the full book or read the first pages for free!
All characters reduced
Things I Have Withheld - Essays - cover

Things I Have Withheld - Essays

Ike Miller

Publisher: Grove Press

  • 0
  • 0
  • 0

Summary

Fourteen “thoughtful and impassioned” autobiographical essays exploring race, sex, gender, belonging, and alienation by an award-winning author (Kirkus Reviews). In a deeply moving, critical and lyrical collection of interconnected essays, award-winning writer Kei Miller explores the silences in which so many important things are kept. Miller examines the experience of discrimination through this silence and what it means to breach it —”to risk words, to risk truth; and through the body and the histories those bodies inherit” the crimes that haunt them, and how the meanings of our bodies can shift as we move through the world, variously assuming privilege or victimhood. Through letters to James Baldwin, encounters with Soca, Carnival, family secrets, love affairs, questions of aesthetics and more, Miller powerfully and imaginatively recounts everyday acts of racism and prejudice from a black, male, queer perspective. An almost disarmingly personal collection, Kei dissects his experiences in Jamaica and Britain, working as an artist and intellectual, making friends and lovers, discovering the possibilities of music and dance, literary criticism, culture, and storytelling. With both the epigrammatic concision and conversational cadence of his poetry and novels, Things I Have Withheld is a great artistic achievement: a work of innovation and beauty which challenges us to interrogate what seems unsayable and why, “our actions, defense mechanisms, imaginations and interactions” and those of the world around us.Praise for Things I Have Withheld Shortlisted for the Baillie Gifford Prize for NonfictionBOMB Magazine’s Editor’s Choice Best Book of 2021 at Slate and Buzzfeed Times (UK), 16 best philosophy and ideas books 2021 “Miller gives a searing voice to ‘the things’ I have been trying so hard to write” in this entrancing collection. . . . Sharp as blades, Miller’s words cut to the core.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review) “There’s no didacticism or sermons here, merely curiosity and sometimes anger and a deep commitment to speaking the uncomfortable truths we’d rather not hear. A bold and daring collection.” —Buzzfeed “This incisive collection of short essays serves as a tabernacle for stories untold, secrets, and reflections on race and sexuality. . . . Immediately arresting and consistently poignant, Miller’s essays engage with the urgency of gripping fiction and the authenticity of stunning poetry. An important voice of the Caribbean, who should be read together with the likes of Safiya Sinclair, Oonya Kempadoo, and Colin Channer.” —Booklist
Available since: 09/14/2021.
Print length: 182 pages.

Other books that might interest you

  • The Daring Life and Dangerous Times of Eve Adams - cover

    The Daring Life and Dangerous...

    Jonathan Ned Katz

    • 0
    • 0
    • 0
    Eve Adams was a rebel. Born Chawa Zloczewer into a Jewish family in Poland, Adams emigrated to the United States in 1912. The young woman befriended anarchists, sold radical publications, took a new name, and ran lesbian-and-gay-friendly speakeasies in Chicago and New York. Then, in 1925, Adams risked all to write and publish a book titled Lesbian Love. In a repressive era, long before today's gay liberation movement, when American women had just gained the right to vote, Adams's bold activism caught the attention of the young J. Edgar Hoover and the US Bureau of Investigation, leading to her surveillance and arrest. In a case that pitted immigration officials, the New York City police, and a biased informer against her, Adams was convicted of publishing an obscene book and of attempted sex with a policewoman sent to entrap her. Adams was jailed and then deported back to Europe, and ultimately murdered by Nazis in Auschwitz.In The Daring Life and Deadly Times of Eve Adams, acclaimed historian Jonathan Ned Katz has recovered the extraordinary story of an early, daring activist. Drawing on startling evidence, carefully distinguishing fact from fiction, Katz presents the first biography of Adams, and the publisher reprints the long-lost text of Adams's rare, unique book Lesbian Love.
    Show book
  • The Gay Agenda - A Modern Queer History & Handbook - cover

    The Gay Agenda - A Modern Queer...

    Ashley Molesso, Chessie Needham

    • 0
    • 0
    • 0
    A joyful celebration of the LGBTQ+ community’s development, history, and culture, packed with facts, trivia, timelines, and charts, and featuring 100 full color illustrations. 
    Compiled and designed by queer power couple and illustrators extraordinaire, Ashley Molesso and Chessie Needham, founders of the popular Brooklyn stationery company Ash + Chess, The Gay Agenda is an inviting and entertaining guide that pays tribute to the LGBTQ+ community. Filled with engaging descriptions, interesting facts, helpful features—such as historical queer icons and events and LGBTQ+ acronym definitions—this fabulous compendium illuminates the transformation of the community, highlighting its struggles, achievements, landmarks, and contributions. It also salutes iconic members of the LGBTQ+ community—the celebrities, politicians, entrepreneurs and ordinary citizens who have made a notable impact on gay life and society itself. 
    The Gay Agenda is a nostalgic look back for older generations, an archive for younger people, and a helpful introduction for those interested in learning more about the community and its contributions. From James Baldwin and Emma Goldman to Marsha P. Johnson and Jodie Foster; the Pink Triangle and the Rainbow Flag to Stonewall and the AIDS crisis; Matthew Shepard and Pulse Nightclub to Sodomy Laws and Obergefell; Drag and Transitioning to The L Word and The Kinsey Scale, Freddie Mercury and Ellen Degeneres to Laverne Cox and David Bowie, this magnificent digest is a keepsake honoring all LGBTQ+, and the ongoing fight to gain—and maintain—equality for all. 
    Supplemental enhancement PDF accompanies the audiobook.
    Show book
  • Qualities of Light - cover

    Qualities of Light

    Mary Carroll Moore

    • 0
    • 0
    • 0
    “Moore traces the contours of shadow without ever letting us forget the transformative power of light.”  —Kaethe Schwehn, author of The Rending and the Nest 
    In this unique and honest coming-of-age story, young artist Molly Fisher predicts another boring summer at her family cabin on Cloud Lake in the Adirondack Mountains of upstate New York, until, weeks before her sixteenth birthday, a boating accident almost causes her little brother's death. Sam is in a coma, and Molly's family, unraveled by tragedy, blames her. Overcome with grief and guilt, Molly befriends a newcomer to the lake, Zoe Novato, a waterskiing champion whose frank interest both unsettles and delights Molly. From best friends, the unthinkable happens: Molly falls in love with Zoe.  In the midst of escalating family tragedy, Molly's journey of discovery unexpectedly becomes a path of redemption for both her parents, bringing their family from lost to found. The transcendent ending shows the power of young love to heal old wounds and allow a deeper forgiveness. Qualities of Light explores the budding of unexpected romance in the face of family tragedy, the forging of a new relationship between a daughter and her gifted, difficult parents, and an adolescent girl's confrontation with her own qualities of light and darkness.
    Show book
  • The Hope Store - cover

    The Hope Store

    Dwight Okita

    • 0
    • 0
    • 0
    Two Asian American men who are soulmates, Luke and Kazu, discover a bold new procedure to import hope into the hopeless. They vow to open the world's first Hope Store. Their slogan: "We don't just instill hope. We install it." The media as well as skeptics and curiosity seekers descend. It's all a walk in the park until customer Jada Upshaw arrives at the store. She has given up on life but not on her unique agenda.  What happens next no one could have predicted. In dreams begin responsibilities.
    Show book
  • Bait and Switch & other stories - cover

    Bait and Switch & other stories

    Ashley Sievwright

    • 0
    • 0
    • 0
    From teenage memories of staying with a cross-dressing cousin in Sydney, to estranged siblings scattering the ashes of a family member, not to mention perplexing encounters in Jordan, these eight stories reflect on family, friendship, desire and belonging in a queer world. 
    Ashley Sievwright is the author of the novels The Shallow End (Shortlisted for the Commonwealth Writers Prize Best First Novel) and Walter. He is also consulting editor of Bent Street, the annual journal of Australian LGBTIQA+ art, writing & ideas. Ashley Sievwright lives in Melbourne, Australia.
    Show book
  • Make Me - MMF Ménage Romance - cover

    Make Me - MMF Ménage Romance

    Alyssa Turner

    • 0
    • 0
    • 0
    Manhattan’s most eligible bachelor, Kyle Hunter, is a Marine Corps vet, the son of a US Senator and the prodigal heir of American corporate royalty. He’s rich, smart and a notorious flirt. Kyle Hunter is also in love with his best friend. So why did he tell Manny they could never see each other again? 
    Manny Tescadero isn’t about to be hurt twice. He’s lost a lot and if there’s one thing he learned in Afghanistan, it’s to defend yourself and those who need you at all costs. When Rebecca Sinclair lands on his doorstep, his honor won’t let him turn her away. His heart won’t let him pretend there isn’t more to it than a soldier’s code. But new love interests aren’t part of the mission plan; not when he’s still in love with someone else. 
    Rebecca Sinclair has never been good at letting loose. As a librarian she has her dream job and a new start with an amazing apartment in the city that never sleeps. She thought she was happy until everything she’s worked for is gone in a flash. Turns out having it all may just mean something else entirely.  
    There are a mountain of reasons why they shouldn’t be together and not one stands a chance of keeping them apart.
    Show book