Fire Shut Up in My Bones - by Charles M Blow (Paperback)

About the Book

A gorgeous, moving memoir of how one of America's most innovative and respected journalists found his voice by coming to terms with a painful past

Book Synopsis

A New York Times Notable Book Lambda Literary Award Winner Long-listed for the PEN Open Book Award

"Charles Blow is the James Baldwin of our age." -- Washington Blade

"[An] exquisite memoir . . . Delicately wrought and arresting." -- New York Times

Universally praised on its publication, Fire Shut Up in My Bones is a pioneering journalist's indelible coming-of-age tale.

Charles M. Blow's mother was a fiercely driven woman with five sons, brass knuckles in her glove box, and a job plucking poultry at a factory near their segregated Louisiana town, where slavery's legacy felt close. When her philandering husband finally pushed her over the edge, she fired a pistol at his fleeing back, missing every shot, thanks to "love that blurred her vision and bent the barrel." Charles was the baby of the family, fiercely attached to his "do-right" mother. Until one day that divided his life into Before and After--the day an older cousin took advantage of the young boy. The story of how Charles escaped that world to become one of America's most innovative and respected public figures is a stirring, redemptive journey that works its way into the deepest chambers of the heart.

"Stunning . . . Blow's words grab hold of you . . . [and] lead you to a place of healing." -- Essence

"The memoir of the year." -- A. V. Club

From the Back Cover

A New York Times Notable Book - Long-listed for the PEN Open Book Award

Charles Blow is the James Baldwin of our age. Washington Blade

[An] exquisite memoir . . . Delicately wrought and arresting. New York Times

Universally praised on its publication, Fire Shut Up in My Bones is a pioneering journalist s indelible coming-of-age tale.

Charles M. Blow s mother was a fiercely driven woman with five sons, brass knuckles in her glove box, and a job plucking poultry at a factory near their segregated Louisiana town, where slavery's legacy felt close. When her philandering husband finally pushed her over the edge, she fired a pistol at his fleeing back, missing every shot, thanks to love that blurred her vision and bent the barrel. Charles was the baby of the family, fiercely attached to his do-right mother. Until one day that divided his life into Before and After the day an older cousin took advantage of the young boy. The story of how Charles escaped that world to become one of America s most innovative and respected public figures is a stirring, redemptive journey that works its way into the deepest chambers of the heart.

Stunning . . . Blow s words grab hold of you . . . [and] lead you to a place of healing. Essence

The memoir of the year. A. V. Club

[Author photo] (c) Beowulf Sheehan

Charles M. Blow has been a columnist at the New York Times since 2008 and has appeared on MSNBC, CNN, Fox News, the BBC, Al Jazeera, and HBO. He lives in Brooklyn with his three children."

Review Quotes

"Fire Shut Up in My Bones is a luminous memoir that digs deep into territory I've longed to read about in black men's writing: into the horror of being submerged in a vast drowning swirl of racial, spiritual, and sexual complexity, only to somehow find one's self afloat, though gasping for breath, and then, at long last and at great cost, swimming. I believe both Ancestors and Descendants will cheer." --ALICE WALKER "Some truths cannot be taught, only learned through stories - profoundly personal and startlingly honest accounts that open not only our eyes but also our hearts to painful and complicated social realities. Charles Blow's memoir tells these kinds of truths. No one who reads this book will be able to forget it. It lays bare in so many ways what is beautiful, cruel, hopeful and despairing about race, gender, class and sexuality in the American South and our nation as a whole. This book is more than a personal triumph; it is a true gift to us all." --MICHELLE ALEXANDER, author of The New Jim Crow "Fire Shut Up in My Bones is a profoundly moving memoir of Charles Blow's coming of age as a black boy in the Deep South; of the way his sensitive and gifted intelligence slowly begins to kindle, becoming ablaze with wonder at the world and his place in it. Above all, this is the story of a courageously honest man arriving at his decision to 'stop running like the river . . . and just be the ocean, vast, deep, and exactly where it was always meant to be.' Blow has written a classic memoir of a truly American childhood." --HENRY LOUIS GATES "Fire Shut Up in My Bones is a heart-stopping memoir: a portrait of the artist--the exceptionally talented columnist Charles Blow--that also puts a searing face on all sorts of abstractions, like poverty, race, sexuality, and a human persistence sometimes known as courage. So particular yet gracefully timeless is this evocation of childhood that I sometimes felt as if I were reading an update of To Kill a Mockingbird, in which the poor, black protagonist's moral education destines him to endure, and prevail." --DIANE McWHORTER, author of Carry Me Home "Stunning...Blow's words grab hold of you like a fever that shakes you up at first but eventually leads you to a place of healing." --Essence "[Fire Shut Up In My Bones] is the most compelling read of the fall and the kind of book that will inspire you to turn off the TV and curl up in front of the fire instead." --BET.com "Blow masterfully evokes the sights, sounds and smells of rough-and-tumble, backwater Louisiana...a well-written, often poetic memoir" --Kirkus "Page by elegant page, Charles Blow has constructed an eloquent and courageous memoir that explains why black and white is never just that--whether it comes to race or the rich, conflicted stew of childhood memory." --GWEN IFILL, moderator, Washington Week, and co-anchor, PBS NewsHour "Brave and powerful . . .a singular look at a neglected America." --Publishers Weekly "Powerful...so well-written." --ANDERSON COOPER "When you finish Charles Blow's mesmerizing memoir, you will cry. And you will better understand poverty, the south, racism, sex, fear, rage, and love. Then you will miss being in his authorial grip. Then you will start reading this stunning book again." --LAWRENCE O'DONNELL "Fire Shut Up in My Bonescloaks its gut-wrenching honesty in lyrical prose." --Goodreads

"Unabashedly honest." --Mother Jones

"Blow's genius lies in his ability to touch us, as the best writing always does." --The Root

"Ferocious...will leave a lasting impression on every reader that picks up this book...There's no greater urge for a writer than to write his or her own story, and Blow accomplishes that feat withheartbreaking beauty." --Writer's Bone "Charles Blow is a fellow Louisianan. His memoir, Fire Shut Up in My Bones, warmed and tickled my bones. The memoir takes its title from a passage from the book of Jeremiah in the Old Testament: 'His word is in my heart like a fire, a fire shut up in my bones. I am weary of holding it in; indeed, I cannot.' I am supremely glad Blow can no longer hold his own story inside and has chosen to share it with us. From a small town kid growing up in extreme poverty in the segregationist Deep South to a columnist at The New York Times, Blow is an absolute treasure and his powerful story deserves to be heard." --DONNA BRAZILE "Fire Shut Up in My Bones is a masterwork of remarkable power, authenticity and honesty. Blow writes with passion about coming of age in a rural Louisiana community suffering from the ravages of racism and poverty. His riveting memoir frankly takes on sexuality, religion and social hierarchy in the African-American community and reveals the inner soul of one of America's most intriguing public intellectuals." --DARREN WALKER, president of the Ford Foundation "Fire Shut Up in My Bonesis an instant classic of American letters. Charles Blow's eloquent memoir is haunted by surges of pain and suffering that rarely escape into the open with such searing honesty. Blow's brilliant and self-critical narrative contains truths which no American can afford to ignore, and which few black men have dared to tell. In this irresistible story of the journalist as a besieged boy and determined young man, one of the nation's foremost social critics bares his soul and speaks his mind with redemptive clarity." --MICHAEL ERIC DYSON "I missed him the moment I read the last word. Charles Blow's delicate, dangerously vulnerable journey from boyhood to manhood to himself, takes hold of you like a long lost friend you don't ever want to let out of your sight again. Fire Sh

About the Author

CHARLES M. BLOW has been a columnist at the New York Times since 2008 and has appeared on MSNBC, CNN, Fox New, the BBC, Al Jazeera, and HBO. He lives in Brooklyn with his three children.