LOVED IT: Knucklehead by Adam Smyer

IMG DESCR: book cover for Knucklehead
Cover art and design by Senhor Tocas

This book was pitched to me as a novel about Marcus, a black attorney in big law in San Francisco, who has anger-management issues around race. So at the end of May, when I had my own anger-management issues around race but didn't know how to give voice to them, Knucklehead called out from the bookshelf.

Through Knucklehead, I relived the racial tension of the 90s through Marcus' eyes and not as I had actually lived it as a 20-something ballet dancer. From that vantage point, Marcus comes across as a brilliant young man allowed to come to a full boil through anger but not through avenues of his intelligence or career trajectory or that woeful word "potential."

IMG DESCR: author photo
photo credit: Ed Newman

Adam Smyer has created a protagonist with sense of masculine empathy that is raw and honest, balanced, intricate, and messy and placed him in a historical context that sheds light onto systemic and institutional racism in case you've been wondering, how did we get here? Or maybe you're wondering, how come we're still here?

Adam's new book, You Can Keep That to Yourself: A Comprehensive List of What Not to Say to Black People, for Well-Intentioned People of Pallor is now available for pre-order and comes out September 1, 2020.