That's How They Get You - by Damon Young (Hardcover)

Book Synopsis

From the Thurber Prize-winning author of What Doesn't Kill You Makes You Blacker comes a ground-breaking collection of Black humor from some of the most acclaimed writers and performers at work today

A critic explores the paradox of finding community in "the dozens" while grieving. A violent town ritual causes an all-too-familiar moral panic. An email thread between friends on why we need an updated "Green Book" but for public toilets. All across the nation "Karens" become illegal overnight. These are just a few of the hilarious worlds contained in Damon Young's groundbreaking anthology featuring the best, funniest, and Blackest essays, short stories, letters, and rants.

With words that roast, ignite, and burn while connecting to and coalescing around a singular thesis, this anthology emphasizes how and why Black American humor is uniquely transfixing. It's not just a mixture of observational anxieties and stream-of-consciousness lucidities but also an acute political clarity about America. Edited and with an introduction by Damon Young, the critically acclaimed author of What Doesn't Kill You Makes You Blacker, the collection features new material from an all-star roster of contributors, including Hanif Abdurraqib, Mahogany L. Browne, Wyatt Cenac, Kiese Laymon, Deesha Philyaw, Roy Wood Jr., Nicola Yoon, and more.

About the Author

Pittsburgh writer DAMON YOUNG's debut memoir, What Doesn't Kill You Makes You Blacker: A Memoir in Essays (Ecco), won the Thurber Prize for American Humor. Damon is also a founder of the culture blog VerySmartBrothas, and was a contributing columnist for The Washington Post Magazine, a contributing opinion writer for The New York Times, a columnist for GQ, and was the creator and host of the Crooked Media podcast "Stuck With Damon Young." Currently, he is the inaugural writer-in-residence at the University of Pittsburgh's David C. Frederick Honors College.