When They Tell You To Be Good

by Prince Shakur

Overview

A TIME, Washington Post, Amazon, BuzzFeed, Poets & Writers, Lambda Literary, Publishers Weekly, them, The Week, Book Riot, Philadelphia Inquirer, Book and Film Globe, AllArts, and Debutiful Best Book of Fall

Winner of the Hurston/Wright Crossover Award

A Library Journal and Okayplayer Best Memoir of 2022

Prince Shakur’s debut memoir brilliantly mines his radicalization and self-realization through examinations of place, childhood, queer identity, and a history of uprisings.

After immigrating from Jamaica to the United States, Prince Shakur’s family is rocked by the murder of Prince’s biological father in 1995. Behind the murder is a sordid family truth, scripted in the lines of a diary by an outlawed uncle hell-bent on avenging the murder of Prince’s father. As Shakur begins to unravel his family’s secrets, he must navigate the strenuous terrain of coming to terms with one’s inner self while confronting the steeped complexities of the Afro-diaspora.

When They Tell You to Be Good charts Shakur’s political coming of age from closeted queer kid in a Jamaican family to radicalized adult traveler, writer, and anarchist in Obama and Trump’s America. Shakur journeys from France to the Philippines, South Korea, and elsewhere to discover the depths of the Black experience, and engages in deep political questions while participating in movements like Black Lives Matter and Standing Rock. By the end, Shakur reckons with his identity, his family’s immigration, and the intergenerational impacts of patriarchal and colonial violence.

Examining a tangled web of race, trauma, and memory, When They Tell You to Be Good shines a light on what we all must ask of ourselves—to be more than what America envisions for the oppressed—as Shakur compels readers to take a closer, deeper look at the political world of young, Black, queer, and radical millennials today.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781953534934
Publisher:	Tin House Books
Publication date:	08/22/2023
Pages:	304
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.40(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Prince Shakur is a queer, Jamaican-American freelance journalist, cultural essayist, and grassroots organizer with a BA in Creative Writing from Ohio University. His words have been featured in Teen Vogue, Catapult, Level, Electric Lit, and more. In addition, Shakur is the proud writer in residence at Sangam House, Twelve Arts, The Studios of Key West, and La Maison Baldwin.

Editorial Reviews

"Excellent."

Book Riot

"Unflinchingly honest. . . . a deeply layered creative nonfiction work."

Electric Literature

"A daring coming-of-age memoir. . . . Shakur claims visionary thinkers and writers right alongside the people in his neighborhood, his family, friends, and comrades as his intellectual and emotional companions, establishing intimate, playful, heartbreaking, and powerful connections across all boundaries. I know we will be hearing much more from this irrepressible new literary voice."

madeline ffitch

"Wrestles with the seemingly impossible task of fighting injustice globally."

The Week

"This memoir of trauma, identity, and race will move you. Move you to tears. Move you to action. Shakur’s exploration of self is revelatory. He is the voice for readers forgotten by publishing."

Debutiful

"Engaging—a tribute to resilience, and to building a better world."

them

"In this autobiography, Shakur, a queer, Jamaican American essayist and activist, charts his political journey as he reckons with his identity, his family’s immigration from Jamaica, and the intergenerational impacts of patriarchal and colonial violence."

New York Public Library

"Shakur writes from a place of honesty that is both searing and poignant in its transparency. His story will resonate deeply for those who hold hidden stories of sadness and grief tightly behind a smiling public mask."

Khadijah Ali-Coleman

"Moving, illuminating, occasionally gorgeous and often powerful."

Philadelphia Inquirer

"In When They Tell You to Be Good, Prince Shakur attempts to make sense of being born into, flung into, both the maw of American violence and the legendary lures and pressures of Babylon. While reckoning with the history of the murders of family members in Jamaica alongside the American state’s history of murdering its Black beings, Prince charts a path through his queerness, his family history, films, literature, the Black radical tradition, as well as his own twin cultures, until an activist, a rigorously-fought-for sense of morality, and the contours of a lucid self comes into view. This is how I’ve come to locate myself in time and space and legacy, Prince seems to say, while unraveling a map of his own life. With When They Tell You to Be Good’s evergreen pairing of both finesse and confidence, it’s miraculous to witness Prince assert that he is his own best cartographer."

Bernard Ferguson

"Powerful. . . . both intellectual and deeply emotional. . . . His memories, presented here with grace and care, will likely help others."

The Columbus Dispatch

"Remarkable."

Okayplayer

"Confident. . . . sharp, engrossing."

Gulf Coast

"As inspiring as it is detailed. . . . Intelligently explores the complicated yet straightforward relationship many men of all colors deal with: the subject of race."

Zeke Thomas

"An intimate view of a young Black man entering a world of pain but coming out the other side with wisdom and hope."

Hippocampus Magazine

"Clear-eyed and unsentimental, an insightful, beautifully written memoir of family and identity."

Booklist

"Magnetic."

Time

"Demonstrates a talent for self-examination, not to mention literary prowess. . . . His confidence and self-awareness enable him to identify life lessons in the moment."

Washington Post

"One of the most moving books of the year, a poignant story of trauma and identity."

Largehearted Boy

"An artful debut."

New Pages

"Shakur’s meditative memoir traces the stormy personal and political path that transformed him from a closeted Jamaican American kid in Cleveland into an experienced writer and organizer."

The New York Times

"Fearless."

West Trade Review

"A story that combines so much—sociocultural criticism, religion, and politics while centering on the microcosm of one Jamaican family and the aftermath of two male relatives’ untimely deaths. . . . Commands a tension and doesn’t release you well after the last sentence."

Morgan Jerkins

"Magnetic."

Time

"Prince’s journey is one that emphasizes the value in exploring one’s uncertainties, but also the courage that it takes to grapple with the answers one might find at the end of it all."

Ligeia Magazine

"Magnetic."

TIME

"Moments of insight that will ring true for many readers, told in well-constructed prose. . . . Shakur is undoubtedly a talented writer with a lot to say."

Gay & Lesbian Review

"Riveting."

From the Publisher

2022-07-27
A Jamaican poet and activist debuts with an unflinching memoir.

“To be Black is to weather pain,” writes Shakur. “To use some of the same devices used against us in the plantation fields. Our families must break some part of us to make us less breakable when the world, hungry for Black flesh, tries to break us too.” By age 15, the author had already lost five close male relatives to murder, and he dedicates much of the book to reckoning with their violence (“the men of my family and of the Afro-Caribbean diaspora are products of masculinities crafted by an unjust society”) and chronicling the forging of his own path. Facing relentless homophobia, he recognized early that being gay meant that he must be prepared to die. He found solace in writing, where he channeled his wounds, and he became an activist in the aftermath of the death of Michael Brown in 2014. Protesting in Ferguson, he realized, “If we fought together, then our Blackness could mean far more than what we had been told it was our entire lives.” Like early adulthood itself, some of the text lacks a coherent structure. The author writes about his extensive travels during and after college, during which he experienced prejudice like he often did at home. Born in 1994, Shakur attempts to create in-the-moment art in relation to his traumas, but the narrative would have benefitted from further reflection. In the standout sections, focusing on his childhood, he demonstrates that he has enough distance from the events to create more nuanced perspectives. In reconciling the anguish he experienced after an uncle was killed by police, Shakur writes, “the lesson is not about our ability to fantasize about self-actualization. The lesson is, instead, what we are willing to face to actualize the deepest and hidden parts of ourselves.”

A scorching, nonlinear journey through a Black man’s search for self.

Kirkus Reviews