Dexterous ... Perry is also expert at a less-sterile mode of writing, and what follows is a kind of affective investigation into the many roles of blueness in Black life ... Even if blue were a literary device, the book would not be spoiled. What unites its disparate contents is a mood, which is just as valuable as an argument. It is a contrapuntal document, musical and moving, and no less rich for its tumbling abundance. In place of clear conclusions are persistent themes, like recurring notes in a song.
Ranges...widely ... The book drifts, like the ocean; it turns suddenly cloudy, like the heavens; it trills, like the jaybird (to which another chapter is devoted). It will have you looking afresh even at your corner mailbox.
