Description

A personal social and intellectual selfportrait of the beloved and enormously influential late Randall Kenan a master of both fiction and nonfiction

Virtuosic in his use of literary forms nurtured and unbounded by his identities as a Black man a gay man an intellectual and a Southerner Randall Kenan was known for his groundbreaking fiction Less visible were his extraordinary nonfiction essays published as introductions to anthologies and in small journals revealing countless facets of Kenans life and work

Flying under the radar these writings were his most personal and autobiographical memories of the three women who raised hima grandmother a schoolteacher greataunt and the greataunts best friend recollections of his boyhood fear of snakes and his rapturous discoveries in books sensual evocations of the land seasons and cropsthe labor of tobacco picking and hog killingof the eastern North Carolina lowlands where he grew up and the food oh the deliriously delectable Southern foods that sustained him Here too is his intellectual coming of age his passionate appreciations of kindred spirits as farflung as Eartha Kitt Gordon Parks Ingmar Bergman and James Baldwin This powerful collection is a testament to a great mind a great soul and a great writer