Going for the Throat

Between the World and Me by Na-Nehisi Coates is powerful.  Written as a letter to his son Samori, Coates talks about how living as an African American is living in constant danger.  Coates is one of my favorite writers, but it is hard for me to write about this book, probably because I don’t yet know exactly how I feel about it.  Or, because the book precipitates feelings more than words and thoughts.

For now, I’ll just use this description from Tressie McMillan Cottom in part of an Atlantic article she wrote:  "[Part of Coates’ text] wants readers for whom thinking about the necessary ugliness of America is novel…. Coates goes for that audience’s throat. He wants them to feel the strangulation of struggle, to rob them of breath for one heartbeat longer than is comfortable….This is the “gut-wrenching” prose with which many white reviewers are wrestling." 

Also, here is a link to an NPR interview with Coates about the book.  It contains a short reading.