#Non-fiction Things I Have Withheld (essays)

• Author: Kei Miller 
• Title: Things I Have Withheld
  
• Published: 2021
• Genre: essays
  
• Monthly plan
• #ReadDiversely
• Trivia: Finalist for  Shortlist  2021 Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction

 

Quick Scan:

1. The first thing that impressed me was the title:
2. Things I Have Withheld
3. This book explores the meanings of silence and the things we cannot say.
4. There are letters  to James Baldwin and Kenyan writer Binyaranga Wainaina.
5. But Miller also offers musings on his family’s secrets….

 

Who is Kei Miller?

1. He is my selection for #ReadingDiversely
2. Caribbean literature.
3. Kei Miller  is a Jamaican poet, essayist, and novelist. (info wikipedia link)
4. He is currently Professor of Creative Writing at the University of Exeter.

 

Conclusion:

1. These are high quality essays
2. …well written and they touch the soul!
3. Unfortunately only 6 of the 14 essays touched MY soul.
4. The introduction  is the hook… very personal, powerful.
5. Miller’s first letter to James Baldwin  was absolutely wonderful!
6. Second essay: Mr. Brown, Mrs. White  and Ms. Black
7. highlighted the classism “…on these rocks that we call islands
8. …that we call home.”
9. The author shines as a storyteller in the essay that will catch
10. every reader’s eye The Old Black Woman Who Sat In the Corner
11. But after the first 6 essays there was less storytelling and more ramblings.
12. The result is a mish-mash names, observations during Carnival in Kingston
13. …trips to Kenya  and Ghana Africa and he text drowns in a sea of memories.
14. Mr Miller tries to bookend the collection in the last essay
15. …another letter to James Baldwin that was not as good as the first
16. …but by now my interest was waning.
17. #GoodRead essays 1-6 then
18. ….I say try it and see if your like it more than I did.