The genre of “race memoir” is a dull and barren one, but Glenn Loury has transcended it to produce a great book. The difference is that most authors of race memoirs have not yet done enough interesting things with their lives to make a memoir worth reading—Ta-Nehisi Coates, Afua Hirsch, or, ahem, the up-to-then unaccomplished author of Dreams from My Father. Loury has smoked crack and taught at Harvard, sometimes on the same day, and that is only one snapshot from his singular life.
Read Full Article »
