These are the layers between all the lines writers write and readers read. They are the layers, disguises and ghosts that form the territory of literature itself. But Shields is interested not just in saying what is not said, but in exploring how it feels to say it. It is also about how writers choose each word and order them so as to guide readers along a path they think they've chosen for themselves. His seemingly uncensored voice, disarmed and careless, is the result of long thought and careful choices.
Shields notes the searing power of black domination.
There are glib answers to this question and there are inflammatory answers, but the fact is that something is going on. We live in strange times, exhorted to celebrate diversity and multiculturalism even as we pretend we are all the same, pretend that these differences are merely window dressing. It is a culture-wide cognitive dissonance, bluntly apparent in sports, and only rarely addressed. There is a dissonance within the book world as well, conventions blithely broken while they are held up as sacred. One of the conventions of book criticism is to put nonfiction books in the hands of reviewers who have experience or expertise in the book's field.