{"product_id":"fire-shut-up-in-my-bones-isbn-9780544570115","title":"Fire Shut Up In My Bones","description":"\u003cstrong\u003eA \u003cem\u003eNew York Times \u003c\/em\u003eNotable Book | Lambda Literary Award Winner | Long-listed for the PEN Open Book Award\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e “Charles Blow is the James Baldwin of our age.” — \u003cem\u003eWashington Blade\u003c\/em\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e “[An] exquisite memoir . . . Delicately wrought and arresting.” — \u003cem\u003eNew York Times\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eUniversally praised on its publication, \u003cem\u003eFire Shut Up in My Bones\u003c\/em\u003e is a pioneering journalist’s indelible coming-of-age tale. \u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Charles M. Blow’s mother was a fiercely driven woman with five sons, brass knuckles in her glove box, and a job plucking poultry at a factory near their segregated Louisiana town, where slavery's legacy felt close. When her philandering husband finally pushed her over the edge, she fired a pistol at his fleeing back, missing every shot, thanks to “love that blurred her vision and bent the barrel.” Charles was the baby of the family, fiercely attached to his “do-right” mother. Until one day that divided his life into Before and After—the day an older cousin took advantage of the young boy. The story of how Charles escaped that world to become one of America’s most innovative and respected public figures is a stirring, redemptive journey that works its way into the deepest chambers of the heart.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e “Stunning . . . Blow’s words grab hold of you . . . [and] lead you to a place of healing.” — \u003cem\u003eEssence\u003c\/em\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e “The memoir of the year.” — A. V. Club | \u003cp\u003e\"\u003ci\u003eFire Shut Up in My Bones\u003c\/i\u003e is \u003cb\u003ea luminous memoir that digs deep into territory I've longed to read about in black men's writing\u003c\/b\u003e: into the horror of being submerged in a vast drowning swirl of racial, spiritual, and sexual complexity, only to somehow find one's self afloat, though gasping for breath, and then, at long last and at great cost, swimming. I believe both Ancestors and Descendants will cheer.\"   —\u003cb\u003eALICE WALKER\u003c\/b\u003e     \"Some truths cannot be taught, only learned through stories - profoundly personal and startlingly honest accounts that open not only our eyes but also our hearts to painful and complicated social realities. Charles Blow's memoir tells these kinds of truths. \u003cb\u003eNo one who reads this book will be able to forget it\u003c\/b\u003e. It lays bare in so many ways what is beautiful, cruel, hopeful and despairing about race, gender, class and sexuality in the American South and our nation as a whole\u003cb\u003e. This book is more than a personal triumph; it is a true gift to us all\u003c\/b\u003e.\"   —\u003cb\u003eMICHELLE ALEXANDER\u003c\/b\u003e, author of \u003ci\u003eThe New Jim Crow\u003c\/i\u003e     \"\u003ci\u003eFire Shut Up in My Bones\u003c\/i\u003e is \u003cb\u003ea profoundly moving memoir\u003c\/b\u003e of Charles Blow's coming of age as a black boy in the Deep South; of the way his sensitive and gifted intelligence slowly begins to kindle, becoming ablaze with wonder at the world and his place in it. Above all, this is the story of a courageously honest man arriving at his decision to 'stop running like the river . . . and just be the ocean, vast, deep, and exactly where it was always meant to be.' \u003cb\u003eBlow has written a classic memoir of a truly American childhood\u003c\/b\u003e.\"   —\u003cb\u003eHENRY LOUIS GATES\u003c\/b\u003e     \"\u003ci\u003eFire Shut Up in My Bones\u003c\/i\u003e is \u003cb\u003ea heart-stopping memoir\u003c\/b\u003e: a portrait of the artist—the exceptionally talented columnist Charles Blow—that also puts a searing face on all sorts of abstractions, like poverty, race, sexuality, and a human persistence sometimes known as courage. So \u003cb\u003eparticular yet gracefully timeless\u003c\/b\u003e is this evocation of childhood that \u003cb\u003eI sometimes felt as if I were reading an update of \u003ci\u003eTo Kill a Mockingbird\u003c\/i\u003e,\u003c\/b\u003e in which the poor, black protagonist’s moral education destines him to endure, and prevail.\"   —\u003cb\u003eDIANE McWHORTER\u003c\/b\u003e, author of  \u003ci\u003eCarry Me Home    \"\u003cb\u003eStunning\u003c\/b\u003e...Blow's words grab hold of you like a fever that shakes you up at first but eventually leads you to a place of healing.\"  —Essence\u003c\/i\u003e     \"[\u003ci\u003eFire Shut Up In My Bones\u003c\/i\u003e] is \u003cb\u003ethe most compelling read of the fall \u003c\/b\u003eand the kind of book that will inspire you to turn off the TV and curl up in front of the fire instead.\"   —\u003ci\u003eBET.com\u003c\/i\u003e  \u003ci\u003e\"Blow masterfully evokes the sights, sounds and smells of rough-and-tumble, backwater Louisiana...\u003cb\u003ea well-written, often poetic memoir\u003c\/b\u003e\"  —Kirkus\u003c\/i\u003e     \"Page by elegant page, Charles Blow has constructed \u003cb\u003ean eloquent and courageous memoir that explains why black and white is never just that\u003c\/b\u003e—whether it comes to race or the rich, conflicted stew of childhood memory.\"   —\u003cb\u003eGWEN IFILL\u003c\/b\u003e, moderator, \u003ci\u003eWashington Week\u003c\/i\u003e, and co-anchor, PBS \u003ci\u003eNewsHour\u003c\/i\u003e     \"\u003cb\u003eBrave and powerful\u003c\/b\u003e . . .a singular look at a neglected America.\"   —\u003ci\u003ePublishers Weekly \u003c\/i\u003e     \"\u003cb\u003ePowerful.\u003c\/b\u003e..so well-written.\"   —\u003cb\u003eANDERSON COOPER\u003c\/b\u003e     \"When you finish Charles Blow's \u003cb\u003emesmerizing \u003c\/b\u003ememoir, you will cry. And you will better understand poverty, the south, racism, sex, fear, rage, and love. Then you will miss being in his authorial grip. Then you will start reading this stunning book again.\"   —\u003cb\u003eLAWRENCE O'DONNELL\u003c\/b\u003e    \u003cb\u003e\"\u003ci\u003eFire Shut Up in My Bones\u003c\/i\u003ecloaks its gut-wrenching honesty in lyrical prose.\"  \u003ci\u003e—\u003c\/i\u003e\u003ci\u003eGoodreads\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e  \"Unabashedly honest.\"  \u003ci\u003e—\u003c\/i\u003e\u003ci\u003eMother Jones\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cp\u003e  \"Blow's genius lies in his ability to touch us, as the best writing always does.\"  \u003ci\u003e—\u003c\/i\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe Root\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e  \"Ferocious...will leave a lasting impression on every reader that picks up this book...There's no greater urge for a writer than to write his or her own story, and Blow accomplishes that feat withheartbreaking beauty.\"  \u003ci\u003e—\u003c\/i\u003e\u003ci\u003eWriter's Bone\u003c\/i\u003e     \"Charles Blow is a fellow Louisianan. His memoir, \u003ci\u003eFire Shut Up in My Bones\u003c\/i\u003e, warmed and tickled my bones. The memoir takes its title from a passage from the book of Jeremiah in the Old Testament: 'His word is in my heart like a fire, a fire shut up in my bones. I am weary of holding it in; indeed, I cannot.' I am supremely glad Blow can no longer hold his own story inside and has chosen to share it with us. From a small town kid growing up in extreme poverty in the segregationist Deep South to a columnist at The New York Times, \u003cb\u003eBlow is an absolute treasure and his powerful story deserves to be heard\u003c\/b\u003e.\"   —\u003cb\u003eDONNA BRAZILE\u003c\/b\u003e     \"\u003ci\u003eFire Shut Up in My Bones \u003c\/i\u003eis \u003cb\u003ea masterwork of remarkable power, authenticity and honesty.\u003c\/b\u003e Blow writes with passion about coming of age in a rural Louisiana community suffering from the ravages of racism and poverty. His riveting memoir frankly takes on sexuality, religion and social hierarchy in the African-American community and reveals the inner soul of one of America's most intriguing public intellectuals.\"   —\u003cb\u003eDARREN WALKER,\u003c\/b\u003e\u003ci\u003e president of the Ford Foundation \u003c\/i\u003e     \"\u003ci\u003eFire Shut Up in My Bones\u003c\/i\u003eis an \u003cb\u003einstant classic of American letters\u003c\/b\u003e. Charles Blow's eloquent memoir is haunted by surges of pain and suffering that rarely escape into the open with such searing honesty. Blow's brilliant and self-critical narrative contains truths which no American can afford to ignore, and which few black men have dared to tell. In this irresistible story of the journalist as a besieged boy and determined young man, one of the nation's foremost social critics bares his soul and speaks his mind with redemptive clarity.\"   —\u003cb\u003eMICHAEL ERIC DYSON\u003c\/b\u003e     \"I missed him the moment I read the last word. Charles Blow's delicate, dangerously vulnerable journey from boyhood to manhood to himself, takes hold of you like a long lost friend you don't ever want to let out of your sight again. \u003ci\u003eFire Sh\u003c\/i\u003e","brand":"Harper Perennial","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":44890056392933,"sku":"NP9780544570115","price":17.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9780544570115.jpg?v=1730232462","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/products\/fire-shut-up-in-my-bones-isbn-9780544570115","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}