This Is Major

March 23, 2020
Poet Lawson (A Speed Education in Human Being), the director of creative writing at Amherst College, offers personal stories and cultural observations in this insightful collection of 17 essays about being a black woman in the U.S. In “American Girls,” Lawson, born in Minnesota in 1982, Lawson discusses living in an upscale neighborhood where kids made fun of her for sounding “suspiciously white.” In “For Colored Girls,” she writes of battling depression in her 20s, and how joining a high school production of Ntozake Shange’s For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide / When the Rainbow Is Enuf helped ground her. She addresses the appropriation of black culture in “I Tried to Be Twitter Famous,” an illuminating take on the influence of “Black Twitter,” and in “Tammy From HR” she recalls her time working at an advertising agency selling “some palatable version of black cool” to white customers. Lawson’s lyrical sensibilities are on display in “You Are Here” and “& Just in Case You Forget Who I Am, I Am,” essays that honor Grace Jones and Anita Hill. Other topics include divorce and Tinder dating (“Cake Is Cancelled”) and racist portrayals in Disney movies (“Love Songs for Thots”). With sharp insight, Lawson elevates the discussion of race in America. (June)
This review has been updated to reflect changes that were made to the book after this review originally published.

Starred review from June 1, 2020

Poet and educator Lawson (creative writing, Amherst Coll.; I Think I'm Ready To See Frank Ocean) makes her nonfiction debut with this collection of essays on feminism and womanhood. Lawson raises up the many ways that Black girls and women contribute to culture, though their contributions are often erased or appropriated, while also emphasizing that exceptionalism isn't required; regular people have as much value as do exceptional ones. Lawson's writings cover a broad range of topics, from her experiences in a prize-winning but drama-plagued high school theater troupe to the difficulties AI has reading dark skin, Diana Ross's confidence and persistence, Tinder dating while Black, the problems with Black Girl Magic and with performative antiracism, the history of hipsters, and much more. Of particular interest are interludes of poems and more experimental approaches to memoir, including a dictionary-style timeline of the author's experiences with words used to mean "Black," a micro-play on intraracial dating, and a series of reflections on Black women's sexuality intertwined with SZA's CTRL album. VERDICT An introspective collection, both enlightening and humorous, that is highly recommended for readers interested in creative approaches to memoir and storytelling.--Monica Howell, Northwestern Health Sciences Univ. Lib., Bloomington, MN

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Starred review from June 1, 2020
Poet Lawson takes a deep dive into the fabrication of Black womanhood in her heartfelt debut collection of essays. Whether demystifying Black Girl Magic, breaking down SZA's CTRL album, or giving Diana Ross her flowers, Lawson seamlessly uses cultural colloquialisms meant to suppress women and gives them new meaning. Lawson grounds her work with personal experiences, ranging from her young girlhood in Kentucky all the way through her dating life on Tinder after divorce. Her tone culminates in beautiful poetry, and her writing is drenched in wit and humor. Lawson's skill for storytelling gleams during heavier topics such as colorism and passive-aggressive racism in the workplace. In other moments, she screams in vulnerability at her epiphanies regarding love and the freedom of sexuality. In a historic exploration of modern segregated cities like Portland, Oregon, Lawson's journalistic research is flawless. This book is an accurate account of surviving discrimination that also envelops universal themes like coming-of-age, self-exploration, and resilience. It is Lawson's love letter to herself and every other Black woman who may have felt invisible or misunderstood. In one of the rare times in print, the totality and the essence of Black women are front and center here.Women in Focus: The 19th in 2020(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2020, American Library Association.)

Starred review from April 15, 2020
A memoir in essays serves as a bold and deeply personal celebration of black women's lives and culture. Black women, writes poet and creative writing instructor Lawson, have always been "possessed of irony and rebellion," blazing trails and disrupting the status quo. The problem is that "the world wants everything we have to offer, except us. It is not that Black Girl Magic isn't real. It is that it doesn't set us free." In a narrative that is part memoir and part lively social history lesson, the author blends her own story with black women's broader cultural histories. An essay on the rough emotional terrain of Lawson's senior year in high school and early 20s gives way to pieces about her failure to become "Twitter famous," dealing with bias in a "transparent creative sustainable millennial" workplace, and white people mistaking her for black celebrities such as Oprah and Whoopi Goldberg. With smart, infectious prose that often reads like poetry, Lawson illuminates the racism that renders so many black women and their accomplishments invisible--literally, in the case of AI's discrimination problem. The author also details lesser-known histories about the true origins of the term "hipster" and Rodeo Caldonia, a 1980s-era performance collective of radical black Brooklynites who "were fourth-wave feminists before Riot Grrrl ever hit the third wave." Lawson celebrates Diana Ross as "major," an icon who is both "intimate and invincible," a balm for black women who are routinely viewed as "difficult" or "impossible to get close to." The music of SZA inspires an extended meditation on dating disasters, sexual double standards, and heartbreak. Lawson's essays--some traditional, some experimental in form--deftly challenge the notion of #BlackGirlMagic" as an extension of the stereotype of black women as exotic beasts of burden unworthy of protection, as body parts and hairstyles to be appropriated. The author honors black women in their fullness. A hilarious, heartbreaking, and endlessly entertaining homage to black women's resilience and excellence.

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