Some of Us Are Very Hungry Now, the debut collection of essays from writer Andre Perry, is both the work of literary merit that serious non-fiction readers crave and an easily approachable compilation that will draw in those who typically prefer fiction.
Perry approaches creative nonfiction with fresh eyes and a contemporary perspective. In just a brief 185 pages, he offers 10 interrelated essays which share the common theme of hunger – for knowledge, discovery, experiences – for life, with all of it’s excruciating beauty. Throughout he explores his identity, both personally and within the constructs set by others. The complexity, the sexuality, of relationships with both women and men. How one learns, grows, bends, flexes over time and through experience. How identity can be a mask that is placed on only when required. And how we seek to find inclusion, a group of others like us and, more importantly, who truly understand us.
Some of Us Are Very Hungry Now holds a deep-rooted commentary on the ways that racism continues to exist overtly in daily life as well as how it quietly seeps into even the most unsuspecting situations. Perry provides a sense that being black is almost like waiting for the other shoe to drop – you know it’s coming, that moment when you will be reminded of your race, just not when or how. He speaks to the way that white people, even those – perhaps, especially those – who claim themselves to be “liberal” still exist in a framework of power. Still perpetuate this social structure by expecting those who are “other” to take on specific functions in ways both explicit and unintentional. And he more broadly highlights how all of the “-isms” – racism, sexism, classism, etc. – are so often overlooked, minimised, or ignored.
In a way few writers are able, Perry reflects honestly on his own intimate life experiences through the lens of his travels across the United States and around the world. With astounding transparency and insight he pokes and prods at his own “secrets and scars,” successes and failures. He examines the contradiction of being expected to fit society’s mould yet being judged when you actually do. He shines a light on how words are used as weapons, powerful and penetrating in their ability to cut you down; yet he admits how he has wielded such weapons himself. He even acknowledges the multitude of ways we learn to move through these experiences: dulling the senses with alcohol, numbing ourselves with drugs, but ultimately forging forward in an attempt to leave behind the old identity and breathe life into the new.
There is clearly much meat on the bone in this collection. Perry’s prose is sharp, witty, and precise. The formats, the narrative structures, he selects are unlike that of typical non-fiction essay writers. By making use of emails, letters, screenplay dialogue, imagined interviews, and multiple choice test questions, Perry excites and engages the reader. He takes the personal, his own unique experiences, and relays them in a way that feels universal, profoundly relatable – and therein lies the hook.
Andre Perry has worked in a number of fields across the United States, from tech to advertising to teaching. A passionate musician and writer, he co-founded the Midwest edition of the Mission Creek Festival, a week of musical and literary festivities. Some of Us Are Very Hungry Now is his first book.
Some of Us Are Very Hungry Now is available from Amazon, Book Depository, and other good book retailers.
Many thanks to Two Dollar Radio for gifting me this advance copy. I haven’t picked up a book published by them this year that was anything less than amazing. Take note! And this is surely just the start of what is to come from Andre Perry.
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Synopsis | Goodreads
With luminous insight and fervent prose, Andre Perry’s debut collection of personal essays, Some of Us Are Very Hungry Now, travels from Washington DC to Iowa City to Hong Kong in search of both individual and national identity. While displaying tenderness and a disarming honesty, Perry catalogs racial degradations committed on the campuses of elite universities and liberal bastions like San Francisco while coming of age in America.
The essays in Some of Us Are Very Hungry Now take the form of personal reflection, multiple choice questions, screenplays, and imagined talk-show conversations, while traversing the daily minefields of childhood schoolyards and midwestern dive-bars. The impression of Perry’s personal journey is arresting and beguiling, while announcing the author’s arrival as a formidable American voice.
