The Breaks - by Julietta Singh (Paperback)

About the Book

"An epistolary essay about race, inheritance, and mothering at the end of the world"--

Book Synopsis

A profound meditation on race, inheritance, and queer mothering at the end of the world.

In a letter to her six-year-old daughter, Julietta Singh writes toward a tender vision of the world, offering children's radical embrace of possibility as a model for how we might live. In order to survive looming political and ecological disasters, Singh urges, we must break from the conventions we have inherited and begin to orient ourselves toward more equitable and revolutionary paths. The Breaks celebrates queer family-making, communal living, and Brown girlhood, complicating the stark binaries that shape contemporary U.S. discourse. With nuance and generosity, Singh reveals the connections among the crises humanity faces--climate catastrophe, extractive capitalism, and the violent legacies of racism, patriarchy, and colonialism--inviting us to move through the breaks toward a tenable future.

Review Quotes

Praise for The Breaks

A New York Public Library Best Book of 2021
A Book Riot Best Genre-Bending Nonfiction of 2021
A Seminary Co-op Bookstores Notable Book 2021
A Literary Hub Most Anticipated Book of 2021

"​​A tale of queer homemaking and expansive kinship--of deciphering family pasts, shaping domestic presence, and imagining unknown futurities of belonging." --Christopher Schaberg, Los Angeles Review of Books

"In a kind of spiritual successor to the genre-defying No Archive Will Restore You, Singh reveals the most intimate details of her life and politics. . . . A stunning work." --Publishers Weekly, starred review

"Singh's clarity of thought, vulnerability, and passion for social justice all render this well-structured essay a pleasure to read. . . . Her anxieties, fears, and triumphs will resonate with parents of all identities and backgrounds." --Kirkus

"Piercing and profound. . . . The Breaks is a gift for posterity--for others who may treasure it and take its vital, urgent message to heart." --Sana Goyal, Brixton Review

"Taking up race, physical vulnerability, queer parenting, and more, The Breaks is a wide-ranging, invigorating mix of memoir and cultural critique." --Book Riot

"The book feels committed to honesty and clear-sightedness above all else. I thought it was extraordinary." --Rebecca Hussey

"The Breaks is amazing--I read the whole thing through in one sitting. It's got the heft and staying power of Baldwin's 'A Letter to My Nephew.'" --Lauren Berlant

"With poignant, aching, beautiful and deeply loving prose, Singh brings brown girls into the sun, and makes you want to change the ways of the world for our young people and for us all." --Imani Perry

"How will we live in the new space that we keep making, through refusal but also adjustment, the necessary accommodations to the 'nowhere and nothing' that this space also is? The Breaks leads us through such moments, questions, and scenes, with tenderness. And deep care." --Bhanu Kapil

About the Author

Julietta Singh is a writer and academic whose work engages the enduring effects of colonization, current ecological crisis, and queer-feminist futures. She is the author of two previous books: No Archive Will Restore You (Punctum Books, 2018) and Unthinking Mastery: Dehumanism and Decolonial Entanglements (Duke University Press, 2018). She currently lives in Richmond, Virginia, with her family.