Library Journal - Audio
06/01/2022
Black's (The Sacred Place) epistolary novel chronicles a dying father's sorrow over a lifetime of failing his gay son, Isaac. Sixty-two-year-old Jacob Swinton bares his soul in this painful recounting of his upbringing and his reasons for treating Isaac as he did. As he states, this is a "record of a poor Black father's appeal…what any dying daddy might say to his son." Jacob is unsparing in his account, brutally revealing how ashamed he was that Isaac wanted to play with dolls and that he played the titular role in the musical Annie. Despite Isaac's talents, Jacob baldly states, "You weren't the son I wanted." This novel is not easy and does not resolve into pat resolutions, but is an initial step of reaching out for forgiveness, even when time has run out. Black narrates his own novel, and although his narration is sometimes a little stilted, this roughness adds an unparalleled note of authenticity and truth. Black simply becomes Jacob and delivers a transparent and piercingly real performance. VERDICT A transformative, gut-punch of a story, sensitively and skillfully told. Highly recommended for all collections.—Sarah Hashimoto
FEBRUARY 2022 - AudioFile
Author Daniel Black delivers his novel with such poignancy that his narration becomes an act of shape-shifting. He fully sinks into the character of Jacob, an African-American man on his deathbed who is reckoning with his past. Longing for reconciliation, Jacob writes a series of letters to his estranged gay son. He shares stories of his childhood, explains the motivations behind his actions, and owns up to his mistakes. As Black portrays Jacob, his low voice carries within it a lifetime of stories, regrets, triumphs, and tragedies. His narration fluctuates in tone and speed as Jacob moves through powerful emotions. While often devastating, this audiobook is ultimately a messily redemptive story about Black fatherhood, the ghosts of American history, and forgiveness. L.S. © AudioFile 2022, Portland, Maine
Publishers Weekly
12/13/2021
Black (The Sacred Place) chronicles a father’s confession of his failures in this heartbreaking narrative. Jacob Swinton writes to his estranged gay son, Isaac, in an effort to, in Jacob’s words, provide a “record of a poor Black father’s appeal... what any dying daddy might say to his son.” Jacob recounts his years growing up in Arkansas, where he bullied a queer classmate, and describes his courtship with his wife, Rachel, and their move to Kansas City, where they had Isaac. He also offers insight on Black history and the power of reading, and writes eloquently about the country versus the city, but the core is about how Jacob treats Isaac—having asked him, for instance, “Do you wanna be a sissy, boy?” at the breakfast table after deriding his son for resisting sports, kissing a doll, and performing in a school play. Jacob’s shame is made palpable in his alternately hurtful and supportive correspondence (“I wonder how to fix you”; “You weren’t the son I wanted”; “Be the kind of man you are, but be a man”), and the wisdom he gains along the way brings him to concluding remarks that are poignant and moving. The painful narrative of regret can feel preachy at times, but it is consistently powerful. Agent: Jim McCarthy, Dystel, Goderich & Bourret. (Feb.)
From the Publisher
Sad and gripping…an example of how fiction is not just a form of literature but a place. We go there for lessons on how to live, how to change and, most important, how to forgive and seek forgiveness."—New York Times Book Review
"Don't Cry for Me is a perfect song: the epistolary dirge of a man singing to his son as he faces death by cancer. At turns intense and funny, tender and brutally honest, Jacob’s letter to his son, Isaac, is revelatory. While the story is an unflinching account of a family and a community in the Black American Midwest coming of age in the modern now, it is also full of that which makes us all human, regardless of where we are from or who we are: full of fathers trying to understand sons, sons trying to understand fathers, parents feeling as if they have failed children, children realizing how they have passed their own traumas on to others and so on. It’s a beautiful book. Read it.”—Jesmyn Ward
“In Daniel Black’s Don't Cry for Me, we’re reminded that consequential movement is always happening whether we like it or not. Black manages to capture, and really free characters, scenes, and so much subtext we’ve felt, but rarely seen or heard in American literature. The book is unafraid of the pungent slivers of joy and those dazzling shards of horror that accompany loneliness and progress. Don't Cry for Me is literally the book my favorite books needed to read. It is an unparalleled literary achievement that already feels like it will, of all things, endure.”—Kiese Laymon, author of Heavy: An American Memoir
"With clarity and a compelling depth of character, Daniel Black continues the tradition of the epistolary in Don’t Cry for Me. This letter from Jacob to his son Isaac gives the reader eyes in two directions, seeing the world behind Jacob and what lies ahead for his son. Jacob, at the end of his life, offers a glimpse back through his family history and the lessons, regrets, and achievements of a black family in America. He also looks over Isaac’s shoulder, imagining the life ahead. What history will repeat? What can they leave behind? This letter, its memories, and conversations give a panorama of this family where the history and the future combine through the impactful storytelling of a gifted writer. Daniel Black continues to show a compelling combination of then and now—residual racial histories and the present moment of his characters."— Ravi Howard, author of Like Trees, Walking and Driving the King
"Don’t Cry For Me is a beautiful, thoughtful novel about living and dying. It's the coming of age story reimagined. As he did with The Coming, Daniel Black has exploded boundaries and rendered binaries obsolete. His language is deceptively simple. What looks like a letter from a father to his son turns out to be a novel about transformation and identity and family and love and land and history and ancestry and reading and thinking and learning and being. The seams of this narrative never show. That is the skill and care of craftsmanship."—Dana Williams, Professor of African American Literature and Chair Department of English, Howard University
“Daniel Black has written a book that is so dearly needed and has been needed for generations. For anyone who cares about Black men, gender, sexuality, and healing, this book is a balm that helps connect the dots between legacies of oppression and opportunities to change course. With elegant and potent prose, he takes us to the past while marking the path to a future where men, boys, and all people become more fully connected to their humanity and divinity. Don't Cry for Me is at moments hard to read but harder to put down. Do yourself and future generations a favor by reading this beautiful literary work.”—L’heureux Lewis-McCoy, author of Inequality in the Promised Land
“Don't Cry For Me shows Daniel Black at the top of his writerly craft. In this painful yet profound novel, Black forces us to grapple with our deepest male fears, pains, taboos, and desires. At the same time, he dares us to imagine new and freer selves. This magical text is one of the most beautiful and important books of this young century."—Marc Lamont Hill, author of Nobody: Casualties of America's War on the Vulnerable, from Ferguson to Flint and Beyond
“Don't Cry for Me is a riveting, courageous portrait of what ails Black families around issues of gender and sexuality. The narrative, a long letter from an apologetic dying father to his estranged gay son, lays bare the devastating consequences of pervasive toxic masculinity norms in American culture, including African American communities. The novel is also an invitation for healing from family secrets, denials and abuse."—Beverly Guy-Sheftall, Founding Director of the Women’s Research and Resource Center and Anna Julia Cooper Professor of Women’s Studies at Spelman College
“In the Swinton family, manhood is a priceless treasure passed from father to son, a litany of strength, work, dominance, stoic quiet, passion for duty - until Isaac is born, who cannot be man like his father Jacob, who ignites a war for both their souls that spreads through decades, across a continent, and into every corner of their lives. Whatever you believe about the truth of inherited lessons, Daniel Black's new novel will haunt you with the certainty that we are shadowed by our past, the sons of imperfect fathers, and the heirs of pain and beauty. This is a rich novel, full of grace, steeped in truth, a journey to be remembered.”—Jim Grimsley, author of Dream Boy and How I Shed My Skin
"Don’t Cry for Me sits readers at the lonesome bedside of a dying black man who reckons with the paradox of age-old unforgiveness and new found hope. Fighting through the fatigue of death-dealing disease and the sheer exhaustion of penning untold truths, the protagonist leads readers on a transgenerational journey from a son’s heartache and a brother’s grief to a husband’s regret and a father’s quest for redemption. Once again, Daniel Black crafts a truly immersive reading experience… my breaths grew more shallow with each turned page." —Gregory C. Ellison II, Ph.D., Associate Professor at Emory University’s Candler School of Theology and author of Cut Dead but Still Alive and Fearless Dialogues: A New Movement for Justice
“A deeply perceptive evocation of what it has meant to be a man and especially a Black man in the United States, all the more affecting for not being shouted out but told with quiet, sturdy intimacy.”—Library Journal STARRED review
“You’ll need to pull out the tissues for this beautiful text about fatherhood, vulnerability, failure, and unconditional love.”—Essence
“Heartbreaking…Poignant and moving… consistently powerful.”—Publishers Weekly
“A revealing ode to a son from a father seeking forgiveness... Embedded in this impactful story about one man’s experience growing up Black in America is an examination of the changing definition of masculinity and how it influences his ability to relate to his gay son.”—Atlanta Journal Constitution
"Incredible storytelling, and readers will be invested from page one....An accomplished author of six previous novels, Black has crafted a memorable, poignant story that explores themes of regret, legacy and family—and yet remains perfectly balanced through it all."—Bookpage STARRED review
"This moving read...is an insightful peek into how the elderly might regard their place in a changing world."—Real Simple, "Best Books of 2022 (So Far)"
"An emotional apology from a dying father to his queer son."—Bookish
"Authentic, poignant and gut-wrenching...Don't Cry for Me demonstrates that no matter how much you think you know, you can always know more – there is always room to grow."—Southern Review of Books
"A stunning novel that all fathers and father figures should read."—De'Shawn Charles Winslow, The Week
Library Journal
★ 10/01/2021
In his introduction to this epistolary novel, Black (They Tell Me of a Home) says, "More than anything, I want readers to reconsider the capacity of our fathers' hearts," and it is precisely such heartfelt reconsideration that he delivers. On his deathbed, 62-year-old Black father Jacob is writing a letter to his gay son, Isaac, whom he hasn't seen in years. Jacob acknowledges the damage he did in not accepting Isaac and seeks to clarify how a tough pre-1960s Arkansas upbringing shaped his understanding of what was expected of him as a man and what he should expect of the world. It's hard work for a man scraping by to support a family, and Jacob's grandaddy thought that showing his family hardness was the right thing to do, just as Jacob thought that tearing apart the action figure Isaac kissed on Christmas morning was the right thing to do. But the world has changed, and as he expresses both love and sorrow Jacob is finally catching up. What results is the story of a complex father-son relationship and a man transformed, even at this late moment. VERDICT A deeply perceptive evocation of what it has meant to be a man and especially a Black man in the United States, all the more affecting for not being shouted out but told with quiet, sturdy intimacy.—Barbara Hoffert, Library Journal
FEBRUARY 2022 - AudioFile
Author Daniel Black delivers his novel with such poignancy that his narration becomes an act of shape-shifting. He fully sinks into the character of Jacob, an African-American man on his deathbed who is reckoning with his past. Longing for reconciliation, Jacob writes a series of letters to his estranged gay son. He shares stories of his childhood, explains the motivations behind his actions, and owns up to his mistakes. As Black portrays Jacob, his low voice carries within it a lifetime of stories, regrets, triumphs, and tragedies. His narration fluctuates in tone and speed as Jacob moves through powerful emotions. While often devastating, this audiobook is ultimately a messily redemptive story about Black fatherhood, the ghosts of American history, and forgiveness. L.S. © AudioFile 2022, Portland, Maine
