Unfollow Me: Essays on Complicity

Social media star Busby debuts with a trenchant collection of essays on race, authenticity, and ambition. Her musings come in the wake of having achieved viral fame in 2016 after posting a video calling out white people for their ”masking of a desire to maintain their racial status with varying displays of eternal naivete,” and the essays that follow offer a “look behind the curtain of identity.” “Flowers for the Black Artists” covers Busby’s time at a retreat for Black artists funded by “(nice, rich, white) liberals,” and “Identity” recounts her feelings working for “the nonprofit machine.” Her writing is infused with humor and pathos, as in her description of her grandparents in “A Consequence of Us”: “My grandfather is a deep rich brown. He loves Cadillacs and most gender roles. My grandmother is inexplicably pale. She loves indulgence and being sick.” One of the most moving moments comes in “A Friend of Men,” when Busby recalls a conversation with a stranger on an airplane, in which she contemplates her reliance on her online persona: “Like, the idea of going out into the world as just Jill scares the shit out of me.” The result is a stirring take on a young woman’s search for identity and the fight for racial equity. (Sept.)