MixedNew York Journal of BooksSecrets are at the center of Derek DelGaudio’s memoir A Moral Man. There are the secrets he chooses to keep and the ones he decides to reveal. In DelGaudio’s telling, family secrets lead to larger secrets and ultimately to his decision to cheat at cards. It is an interesting premise, and once DelGaudio gets into his journey with sleight of hand tricks it works. What is harder to follow is the family back story DelGaudio offers early on. Real life is less real than what happens when magic enters the narrative, it is the magic that makes DelGaudio’s words magical.
Louis Chude-Sokei
RaveThe New York Journal of BooksFrom the start it is clear Floating in a Most Peculiar Way is going to be a journey of discovery like few others ... The simplicity of the language makes it all the more heartbreaking ... The search for his homeland, his father and who he is are all central themes in Chude-Sokei’s memoir, but this is not a dry self-absorbed academic exploration, although Chude-Sokei is in fact an academic. It is a story with an imperfect protagonist whose honesty and, even his anger, make him endearing ... Chude-Sokei’s life has been challenging. Still, he does not dwell on his hardships, instead they are mere backdrops for his stories. This is narrative storytelling at its best; the story moves along through action and objects. There are the things Chude-Sokei must leave behind in Jamaica—and the people attached to them. It is through these objects that he talks about his molestation, almost like a footnote ... In talking about race and identity Chude-Sokei is brutally honest ... The issues he raises are serious and heavy. Chude-Sokei doesn’t shy away from their complexity. But he also doesn’t stray into theory and the abstract. Chude-Sokei’s life is a lived one, with all its imperfections and disappointments. The memoir could be dark, but it is not. Chude-Sokei’s story doesn’t come together perfectly in an uplifting ending. His is a more complete story that uses humor to light the darkness ... While few of us know what it is like to be from a country that doesn’t exist almost all of us can relate to the egg story, and that is the true beauty of this book.
