I must say, Kie, as your true friend...that by adding six rich new essays, deftly curating seven from the original book, and reworking the chronology, you have made a once solid collection superb.

In revisiting these essays, Laymon responds to the voice he had nearly a decade ago, and to the echo of his own work speaking to his ghosts, and the echo of the people he wrote to in his home, which he can now more clearly hear. Laymon often talks about how he 'had to write to be a decent human being.' How the act of not-writing is stagnation, how that stagnation leads to him slowly killing himself and those he loves. Writing is movement, and movement is needed for peoples that don’t always have a physical space that is a welcoming home. And revision is how you keep the conversation going with yourself, and your readers. Revision is how you improve your work, your home, yourself. It is how you build yourself a home with your writing, even if just in words and art, as home is not always afforded to us in physical spaces in this world.

I’m here to tell you that while you might successfully read every page in one sitting (and you’ll want to), it will take days to fully absorb their richness. When you read Laymon’s writing, you are engaging in a conversation that takes place both on and off the page. This is a book you will find yourself revisiting and discussing, with yourself and others, over and over.

Gracefully encompassing pain and power and so much in between, Laymon’s artfully piercing essays share truth without limit, and could not feel more timely..

While the book is strong as a whole, recollections of his Mama and Grandmama, who wanted better for him, are especially poignant.

A timely and disquieting contribution to urgent conversations about race.