Here for It; Or, How to Save Your Soul in America: Essays
Ratings9
Average rating4.3
"R. Eric Thomas didn't know he was different until the world told him so. Everywhere he went--whether it was his rich, mostly white, suburban high school, his conservative black church, or his Ivy League college in a big city--he found himself on the outside looking in. In essays by turns hysterical and heartfelt, Eric redefines what it means to be an "other" through the lens of his own life experience. He explores the two worlds of his childhood: the barren urban landscape where his parents' house was an anomalous bright spot, and the verdant school they sent him to in white suburbia. He writes about struggling to reconcile his Christian identity with his sexuality, about the exhaustion of code-switching in college, accidentally getting famous on the internet (for the wrong reason), and the surreal experience of covering the 2016 election as well as the seismic change that came thereafter. Ultimately, Eric seeks the answer to the ever more relevant question: Is the future worth it? Why do we bother when everything seems to be getting worse? As the world continues to shift in unpredictable ways, Eric finds the answers to these questions by re-envisioning what "normal" means, and in the powerful alchemy that occurs when you at last place yourself at the center of your own story"--
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I don't remember when exactly I discovered R. Eric Thomas' column on Elle, but now I can't imagine living in our current state without it.
Here For It was a breath of fresh air. While I wasn't sure what to expect with the book being a collection of essays, I was not disappointed. It's hilarious, poignant, and at times incredibly deep. It was everything I anticipated, and more.
I'm not always this format's biggest fan. Funny online personality turns in a collection of essays for a debut novel, the publisher hoping for some of that online recognition turning into book sales. Exhibit A: a columnist for Elle.com who's day job originated with a presidential thirst tweet citing a photo of Barack Obama, Justin Trudeau and Enrique Peña Nieto as “Tom Ford presents The Avengers.”
Still, Here For It and subscribed to the newsletter. Seriously, R. Eric Thomas has a newsletter I've been getting for months now. That means I can see through his suburban lies and know despite all his neighbourhood foreboding laid out in one of his essays, citing a distrust of living anywhere with a lawn, he and his husband David recently bought their first home.
Fine, showing my hand here and revealing how I'm part of that online fandom and in the pocket of black, gay columnists, but hear me out. Eric brings his A game here. A Moth veteran he knows how to build a story. He's a playwright who understands a good narrative arc. Eric's story on his high school crush Electra is as perfect and touching a story as you could want. And wrestling with his own deep Christian faith as a gay man that would go on to marry a Presbyterian pastor isn't all Whitney Houston in The Preacher's Wife and is fraught and thoughtful. I liked this collection more than I thought I would. Filtered through some queer ebonics sure - qween and gurl are proper pronouns here - still a fun respite. Worth it.
