num_pages: 146
description: Author and essayist Kiese Laymon is one of the most unique stirring and powerful new voices in American writing. How to Slowly Kill Yourself and Others in America is a collection of his essays touching on subjects ranging from family race violence and celebrity to music writing and coming of age in Mississippi. In this collection Laymon deals in depth with his own personal story which is filled with trials and reflections that illuminate under-appreciated aspects of contemporary American life. New and unexpected in contemporary American writing Laymons voice mixes the colloquial with the acerbic while sharp insights and blast-furnace heat calls to mind a black 21st-century Mark Twain. Much like Twain Laymon's writing is steeped in controversial issues both private and public. This collection introduces Laymon as a writer who balances volatile concepts on a razor's edge and chops up much-discussed and often-misunderstood topics with his scathing humor and fresh unexpected takes on the ongoing absurdities frivolities and calamities of American life.
language: English
title: How to Slowly Kill Yourself and Others in America
publisher: Agate Bolden