Fire Shut Up In My Bones: A Memoir

by Charles M. Blow Narrated by Charles M. Blow

Overview

A gorgeous, moving memoir of how one of America's most innovative and respected journalists found his voice by coming to terms with a painful past

New York Times columnist 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 was felt astonishingly close, reverberating in the elders' stories and in the near-constant wash of violence.

Charles's attachment to his mother-a fiercely driven women with five sons, brass knuckles in her glove box, a job plucking poultry at a nearby factory, a soon-to-be-ex husband, and a love of newspapers and learning-cannot protect him from secret abuse at the hands of an older cousin. It's damage that triggers years of anger and searing self-questioning.

Finally, Charles escapes to a nearby state university, where he joins a black fraternity after a passage of brutal hazing, and 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.

A powerfully redemptive memoir that both fits the tradition of African-American storytelling from the South, and gives it an indelible new slant.

Editorial Reviews

FEBRUARY 2015 - AudioFile

This audiobook is a welcome exception to light, and overly hopeful, memoirs. The author, a NEW YORK TIMES columnist, is unsparing in his truthfulness and emotion. Yes, there are hope and life and happiness, but Blow also accentuates the grittiness, racism, and challenges he faced growing up in the South in the 1970s. As narrator, Blow has a deep, low voice that has an Everyman quality to it. He reads much too slowly and with little variation in pitch and tone, but his diction is excellent, and his story is compelling. The importance of the book is that it’s Blow’s story, and he makes it sound personal. He creates a vivid world that is captivating and absorbing. R.I.G. © AudioFile 2015, Portland, Maine

Library Journal - Audio

01/01/2015
New York Times columnist Blow grew up in the Deep South and was the baby of a family that included a mother who kept brass knuckles in her glove box and plucked chickens at a local factory to raise her five sons after her cheating husband left them for good. Blow demonstrates unflinching honesty in discussing his familial situation, his abuse by an older cousin, and his attendance at a college that offered a way out even while allowing black fraternities to haze young men. As he tells his story, he places it within the context of the poverty and racism of the South. The memoir, well read by the author, is deeply affective and redemptive. VERDICT Recommended for all readers who enjoy memoir.—Pam Kingsbury, Univ. of North Alabama, Florence

FEBRUARY 2015 - AudioFile

This audiobook is a welcome exception to light, and overly hopeful, memoirs. The author, a NEW YORK TIMES columnist, is unsparing in his truthfulness and emotion. Yes, there are hope and life and happiness, but Blow also accentuates the grittiness, racism, and challenges he faced growing up in the South in the 1970s. As narrator, Blow has a deep, low voice that has an Everyman quality to it. He reads much too slowly and with little variation in pitch and tone, but his diction is excellent, and his story is compelling. The importance of the book is that it’s Blow’s story, and he makes it sound personal. He creates a vivid world that is captivating and absorbing. R.I.G. © AudioFile 2015, Portland, Maine

Product Details

BN ID:	2940172523687
Publisher:	Brilliance Audio
Publication date:	09/23/2014
Edition description:	Unabridged
Sales rank:	1,035,214

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