Magically Black and Other Essays - by Jerald Walker

About the Book

Book Synopsis

In this engaging follow up to How to Make a Slave and Other Essays, the recipient of PEN New England Award for nonfiction and finalist for the National Book Award sharply examines and explains Black life and culture with equal parts candor and humor.

In Magically Black and Other Essays Jerald Walker elegantly blends personal revelation and cultural critique to create a bracing and often humorous examination of Black American life. He thoughtfully addresses the inherent complexities of topics as eclectic as incarceration, home renovations, gentrification, the crip walk, pimping, and the rise of the MAGA movement, approaching them through various Black perspectives, including husband, father, teacher, and writer. The collection's overarching theme is captured in the titular essay, which examines the culture of heroic action African Americans created in response to their enslavement and oppression, giving proof to Albert Murray's observation that the "fire in the forging process . . . for all its violence, does not destroy the metal that becomes the sword."

Review Quotes

Poignant, hilarious, and slyly self-indulgent, Magically Black and Other Essays is a totally original investigation of one eloquent writer's lived Blackness. Whether he's teaching Black literature, facing a MAGA neighbor, worrying about his teen-aged sons, or second guessing White people, Jerald Walker's voice is unique . What a gem of a book! -- Nell Irvin Painter, author of I Just Keep Talking: A Life in Essays and Old in Art School: A Memoir of Starting Over and The History of White People

Magically Black and Other Essays by Jerald Walker is a brilliant and necessary addition to the canon on race in America... Walker is a stubborn individualist who writes about Blackness without laying claim to its familiar forms, who chronicles racism and white privilege but complicates his findings with complexity and doubt. His essays, while highly personal, are so light-handed that a few humorous pages recounting a dinner party or a trip to the doctor fearlessly expose a hot topic, make challenging observations, and critique both the topic and himself. Idiosyncratic and smart, Magically Black moves the dialogue forward -- The Rumpus.com

"As the zestful exploration of how Black identities are shaped, including by conflicts between the compromised and authentic self--Magically Black is brilliantly alive to the dynamic interactions of the personal and the political. That's part of the riveting and multidimensional magic act performed by one of our most gifted essayists."
-- Robert Atwan, Series Editor of the Best American Essays

"Walker's reflections are honest with trappings of anger, regret, and growth. Readers who enjoyed his previous titles will savor this one, as will new readers, who will want to read his previous works." -- Library Journal

"Jerald Walker's compilation of short essays is a Black Survival Kit. From teaching to taking care of his lawn, Walker provides insight into what can only be called the daily occurrences of blackness. How should one interact around the police? What goes through a father's mind when his son does not return home on time? Walker writes with honesty and humor. His book in many ways magically measures the many degrees of life."
-- E. Ethelbert Miller writer and literary activist. Received a 2023 Grammy nomination for Spoken Word and Poetry

"Walker's observations are poignant and insightful. . . . Walker is a witty, talented writer. A funny and perspicacious essay collection about Black life in America."
-- Kirkus Reviews

"Like Richard Pryor, Jerald Walker can make us laugh our heads off even as we realize that nothing he's talking about is funny. The essays in Magically Black are the real deal. So is Walker."
-- Clifford Thompson, author of What It Is: Race, Family, and One Thinking Black Man's Blues and Big Man and the Little Men: A Graphic Novel

"Jerald Walker's reflections on the urgent complications of Black life and survival--including essays on Colin Kaepernick, police brutality, and appropriation--are deeply grounded in the American grain and at the same time powerfully unique. His writing hums with humor and curiosity and is laced with tart and joyful takes on family, marriage, and inheritance. With this book Walker joins great essayists like Ralph Ellison and James Alan McPherson in imagining and explaining why and how the American culture "we have created" is the truest embodiment of our identity. Magically Black affirms Jerald Walker's status as a national treasure." -- Whitney Terrell, author of The Good Lieutenant

"Jerald Walker's intellectual acuity or indignation at injustice or resolute self-examination or scathing, leavening sense of humor alone would make the essays in Magically Black well-worth reading. Combined, however, those qualities elevate his meticulous, impassioned parsings of would-be mundane incidents that become occasions for lamenting, mocking, and generally calling out white America for the mortal danger to which it continually subjects Black lives into what should be understood as contemporary prophecy. Walker always sees where it's at with this country and always speaks truth to power, as prophets always do." -- Paul Harding, author of Tinkers and winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction

"In these stirring pieces, Walker (How to Make a Slave and Other Essays), a creative writing professor at Emerson College, meditates on living as a Black man in America. Delivering sharp assessments of America's racist mores and brimming with pathos and levity, this packs a punch."
-- Publishers Weekly

"Blackness is powerful, a 'choose your own adventure"'demanding careful survival strategies. It is weeping over the anguish of slave ancestors while reveling in the badassery of Shaft and Superfly; daring to thrive in 'a place where the flames of violence and hardship . . . forge lives into steel.' Hilarious, witty, and heartbreaking, Walker's cool, ironic essays demand attention." -- Booklist (starred review)