Kelly Writers House Fellows 2018: Charles M. Blow April 23-24

In this moving memoir, Charles M. Blow mines the compelling poetry of the out-of-time African-American Louisiana town where he grew up -- a place where slavery's legacy felt astonishingly close. Blow's attachment to his mother cannot protect him from secret abuse at the hands of an older cousin. Finally, Blow escapes to a nearby state university, where he joins a black fraternity after a passage of brutal hazing. He then enters a world of racial and sexual privilege that feels like everything he's ever needed and wanted, until he's called upon, himself, to become the one perpetuating the shocking abuse.