How to Make a Slave and Other Essays
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“An often hilarious roundup of stories about the obliviousness of white liberals, race and restaurant seating, and the writer’s own mentor.”
Chicago Tribune
Winner of the Massachusetts Book Award
Finalist for the National Book Award in Nonfiction
A Buzzfeed Best Books of the Year Pick
One of Kirkus Reviews’ Best Books of 2023
A Literary Hub Pick of the Year's Best Books
An Amazon Editor’s Top Pick in Memoirs
For the Black community, Jerald Walker asserts in How to Make a Slave, “anger is often a prelude to a joke, as there is broad understanding that the triumph over this destructive emotion lay in finding its punchline.”
It is on the knife's edge between fury and farce that the essays in this exquisite collection balance. Whether confronting the medical profession's racial biases, considering the complicated legacy of Michael Jackson, paying homage to his writing mentor James Alan McPherson, or attempting to break free of personal and societal stereotypes, Walker elegantly blends personal revelation and cultural critique.
The result is a bracing and often humorous examination by one of America's most acclaimed essayists of what it is to grow, parent, write, and exist as a Black American male. Walker refuses to lull his listeners; instead his missives urge them to do better as they consider, through his eyes, how to be a good citizen, how to be a good father, how to live, and how to love.
Praise