"I got paid for being dope," brags Alexander, a veteran hip-hop journalist who was tapped by ESPN: The Magazine
to provide street cred in its coverage of African-American athletes, only to find his prose chipped at by uncomprehending white editors. He counts among his talents "consuming the stranger dimensions of popular culture and then talking about it" and "[getting] tore-down drunk and [writing] about the emotions I experienced at their most raw." Both are on display in this dizzying memoir, which shifts seamlessly from one literary style to the next, even turning briefly into a graphic novel in a scene depicting Alexander's first breakdancing lesson and subsequent concussion. From a whirlwind tour of Alexander's escape from Sandusky, Ohio, to start a career as a reporter, and of bouts of sex and drug use that repeatedly bring him to the brink of mental collapse, his father, Delbert, flits through the narrative. Although Alexander's mother called her son's wild temper "the Delbert in him," the memoir eventually identifies that quality as his unrelenting desire to reinvent himself, to hustle the system even when he hurts those closest to him and grinds himself down in the process. Few writers would possess the willingness to confront their disintegrating marriage with the brutal honesty shown here; fewer still would admit so readily to their own culpability. Alexander has given his inner demons a powerful voice, only to shout them down and prove himself at the top of his game. (On sale June 10)
Forecast:Those who have read Alexander's work in the
San Francisco Bay Guardian,
L.A. Weekly,
McSweeney's,
Vibe and
Honey will gravitate to this, and an author tour and print ads in literary and black magazines should stoke interest further.
