| Edition |
First trade paperback edition. |
| Description |
xiv, 234 pages ; 21 cm |
| Note |
Includes reading group guide. |
|
First published in hardback in May 2022. |
| Summary |
"At nine years old, D. Watkins has three concerns in life: picking his dad's Lotto numbers, keeping his Nikes free of creases, and being a man. Directly in his periphery is east Baltimore, a poverty-stricken city battling the height of the crack epidemic just hours from the nation's capital. Watkins, like many boys around him, is thrust out of childhood and into a world where manhood means surviving by slinging crack on street corners and finding oneself on the right side of pistols. For thirty years, Watkins is forced to safeguard every moment of joy he experiences or risk losing himself entirely. Now, for the first time, Watkins harnesses these moments to tell the story of how he matured into the D. Watkins we know today--beloved author, college professor, editor-at-large of Salon.com, and devoted husband and father. Black Boy Smile lays bare Watkins's relationship with his father and his brotherhood with the boys around him. He shares candid recollections of early assaults on his body and mind and reveals how he coped using stoic silence disguised as manhood. His harrowing pursuit of redemption, written in his signature street style, pinpoints how generational hardship, left raw and unnurtured, breeds toxic masculinity. Watkins discovers a love for books, is admitted to two graduate programs, meets with his future wife, an attorney--and finds true freedom in fatherhood." -- Amazon.com. |
| Subject |
Watkins, D. (Dwight) -- Childhood and youth.
|
|
African American youth -- Maryland -- Baltimore -- Biography.
|
|
African American authors -- Maryland -- Baltimore -- Biography.
|
|
Coming of age.
|
|
East Baltimore (Baltimore, Md.) -- Biography.
|
| Genre/Form |
Autobiographies.
|
| ISBN |
9780306923982 |
|
030692398X |
|
