A funny, thought-provoking, and profound memoir about the intersection of Blackness and health.
An “unambiguously Black” Cuban writer uses her life story to examine multiple aspects of community care.
After “two decades working my ass off in the food service industry,” Gordon was exhausted. She left New York City, where she was working as a server, self-medicating with drugs, and making ends meet by selling them. “I was weary in my soul, in my heart,” she writes. “Tired of everything.” She moved to Miami, intending to get sober and to heal. She started therapy and joined an online support group for adults who, like her, have such severe dental problems that they must have all of their teeth extracted and replaced by dentures. While in Miami, Gordon also began Casa de Tami, a program that invites individual Black activists from “marginalized genders” to stay at her home and be treated compassionately. Eventually, with the help of a community fundraiser, Gordon moved to New Orleans, where she continued to document the ways in which members of close-knit communities support each other’s healing. While much of the book is about deeply traumatic struggles, Gordon begins her story by letting readers know that she is not writing “trauma porn.” The author’s voice is intimate, vulnerable, frank, humorous, and affectionate, and her impressive capacity for self-reflection infuses her work with refreshingly original insights. She intersperses her memoir with a beautifully curated selection of the voices of people who share the author’s talent for conversational, honest prose. “I’m not a teacher, guru, or authority,” she writes. “Hood Wellness isn’t a how-to kind of book. It’s a reflection of the power of community and an affirmation that, regardless of our intersections and hardships, there is more for us when we walk together.” Gordon’s vision of a more just future feels both inspiring and possible.
A funny, thought-provoking, and profound memoir about the intersection of Blackness and health.Pub Date: June 18, 2024
ISBN: 9781955905343
Page Count: 312
Publisher: Row House Publishing
Review Posted Online: April 4, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2024
An important dialogue at a fraught time, emphasizing mutual candor, curiosity, and respect.
Two bestselling authors engage in an enlightening back-and-forth about Jewishness and antisemitism.
Acho, author of Uncomfortable Conversations With a Black Man, and Tishby, author of Israel: A Simple Guide to the Most Misunderstood Country on Earth, discuss many of the searing issues for Jews today, delving into whether Jewishness is a religion, culture, ethnicity, or community—or all of the above. As Tishby points out, unlike in Christianity, one can be comfortably atheist and still be considered a Jew. She defines Judaism as a “big tent” religion with four main elements: religion, peoplehood, nationhood, and the idea of tikkun olam (“repairing the world through our actions”). She addresses candidly the hurtful stereotypes about Jews (that they are rich and powerful) that Acho grew up with in Dallas and how Jews internalize these antisemitic judgments. Moreover, Tishby notes, “it is literally impossible to be Jewish and not have any connection with Israel, and I’m not talking about borders or a dot on the map. Judaism…is an indigenous religion.” Acho wonders if one can legitimately criticize “Jewish people and their ideologies” without being antisemitic, and Tishby offers ways to check whether one’s criticism of Jews or Zionism is antisemitic or factually straightforward. The authors also touch on the deteriorating relationship between Black and Jewish Americans, despite their historically close alliance during the civil rights era. “As long as Jewish people get to benefit from appearing white while Black people have to suffer for being Black, there will always be resentment,” notes Acho. “Because the same thing that grants you all access—your skin color—is what grants us pain and punishment in perpetuity.” Finally, the authors underscore the importance of being mutual allies, and they conclude with helpful indexes on vernacular terms and customs.
An important dialogue at a fraught time, emphasizing mutual candor, curiosity, and respect.Pub Date: April 30, 2024
ISBN: 9781668057858
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Simon Element
Review Posted Online: March 13, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A conversational, pleasurable look into McConaughey’s life and thought.
All right, all right, all right: The affable, laconic actor delivers a combination of memoir and self-help book.
“This is an approach book,” writes McConaughey, adding that it contains “philosophies that can be objectively understood, and if you choose, subjectively adopted, by either changing your reality, or changing how you see it. This is a playbook, based on adventures in my life.” Some of those philosophies come in the form of apothegms: “When you can design your own weather, blow in the breeze”; “Simplify, focus, conserve to liberate.” Others come in the form of sometimes rambling stories that never take the shortest route from point A to point B, as when he recounts a dream-spurred, challenging visit to the Malian musician Ali Farka Touré, who offered a significant lesson in how disagreement can be expressed politely and without rancor. Fans of McConaughey will enjoy his memories—which line up squarely with other accounts in Melissa Maerz’s recent oral history, Alright, Alright, Alright—of his debut in Richard Linklater’s Dazed and Confused, to which he contributed not just that signature phrase, but also a kind of too-cool-for-school hipness that dissolves a bit upon realizing that he’s an older guy on the prowl for teenage girls. McConaughey’s prep to settle into the role of Wooderson involved inhabiting the mind of a dude who digs cars, rock ’n’ roll, and “chicks,” and he ran with it, reminding readers that the film originally had only three scripted scenes for his character. The lesson: “Do one thing well, then another. Once, then once more.” It’s clear that the author is a thoughtful man, even an intellectual of sorts, though without the earnestness of Ethan Hawke or James Franco. Though some of the sentiments are greeting card–ish, this book is entertaining and full of good lessons.
A conversational, pleasurable look into McConaughey’s life and thought.Pub Date: Oct. 20, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-593-13913-4
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Oct. 27, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
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