Ranging from Ta-Nehisi Coates's case for reparations to D'Angelo's simmering blend of R&B and racial justice, Jesse McCarthy's dazzling essays capture debates at the intersection of art, literature and politics in the twenty-first century with virtuosic intensity. In "Notes on Trap", McCarthy borrows a conceit from Susan Sontag to dissect the significance of trap music in American society, while in "The Master's Tools", Velazquez becomes a lens through which to view Kehinde Wiley's paintings. Essays on John Edgar Wideman, Terrance Hayes and Claudia Rankine survey the state of black letters.In "The Time of the Assassins", McCarthy, a black American raised in France, writes about returning to Paris after the Bataclan massacre and finding a nation in mourning but dangerously unchanged. Taken together, these essays portray a brilliant critic at work, making sense of our dislocated times while seeking to transform our understanding of race and art, identity and representation.

Author; Jesse McCarthy

Publisher Liveright Publishing Corporation

ISBN 9781631496486