2treads's review
challenging
dark
funny
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
4.0
If you ask me why I write stories, or novels, or poems, I would tell you it is because things that are real in my country, things that are factual, things that have happened and that continue to happen, have always had for me the quality of the unreal – the texture of fiction. -excerpt from The Texture of Fiction
Miller is brilliant and the way he probes issues and existence, examining what pours forth, presenting his experiences, opinions, and understanding, is smooth and opens a channel of reciprocity with his reader.
He is not afraid to delve into and question the murkier, more violent parts to his country and community, the divides that have some living lives of comfort and others lives of desolation and destitution. Yet everything is related with care and feeling, with connection.
When he writes of the position of Caribbean writers and writers outside of the 'central West', glaring similarities and sameness can be seen to this day; who has gotten a foot in and who still remains on the fringes, how the literature of the Caribbean is viewed and how some authors have fallen into the 'universal' trap.
I also love how he is willing to examine his own position in certain spaces and what he knows now that would have served him well then. There is fire, humour, and vulnerability in all these essays. Miller is not afraid to evaluate self, country, region, and religion; always seeking a path that leads to answers and illumination. There is an interrogation of foresight and hindsight.
-Often times I find there is no need to invent or to create. There is only the need to see, and then to tell-
Miller is brilliant and the way he probes issues and existence, examining what pours forth, presenting his experiences, opinions, and understanding, is smooth and opens a channel of reciprocity with his reader.
He is not afraid to delve into and question the murkier, more violent parts to his country and community, the divides that have some living lives of comfort and others lives of desolation and destitution. Yet everything is related with care and feeling, with connection.
When he writes of the position of Caribbean writers and writers outside of the 'central West', glaring similarities and sameness can be seen to this day; who has gotten a foot in and who still remains on the fringes, how the literature of the Caribbean is viewed and how some authors have fallen into the 'universal' trap.
I also love how he is willing to examine his own position in certain spaces and what he knows now that would have served him well then. There is fire, humour, and vulnerability in all these essays. Miller is not afraid to evaluate self, country, region, and religion; always seeking a path that leads to answers and illumination. There is an interrogation of foresight and hindsight.
-Often times I find there is no need to invent or to create. There is only the need to see, and then to tell-
Content Warnings
Minor: Adult/minor relationship, Death of parent, Homophobia, Murder, and Police brutality
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