Wallace, a Black queer doctoral student from Alabama, navigates a tense weekend at a predominantly white Midwestern university. While his peers socialize and debate, Wallace manages the destruction of his protein experiments in the biochemistry lab and internalizes the recent death of his father. He faces overt and subtle hostility from his cohort, testing the boundaries of his isolation. The narrative centers on a complicated physical and emotional encounter with Miller, a straight-identifying classmate, which forces Wallace to confront whether he can exist authentically within his academic environment or his social circle.
This book is for readers interested in the internal friction of elite academia and the specific pressures of being an outsider in institutional spaces. Those who study the intersection of race, shame, and intellectual labor will find a detailed representation of the micro-aggressions and emotional exhaustion inherent in graduate life. Readers walk away with a stark understanding of how trauma and structural bias dictate the way an individual occupies a room and maintains their personal boundaries under scrutiny.
Deep, inward-looking and thought-provoking; a moderate read.
Best for readers like The Mindful Reader. Which reader are you?
- Published
- 2020
- Language
- EN
