The Lonely Letters

By Ashon T. Crawley

Book Overview

In The Lonely Letters , A tells Moth: "Writing about and thinking with joy is what sustains me, daily. It nourishes me. I do not write about joy primarily because I always have it. I write about joy, Black joy, because I want to generate it, I want it to emerge, I want to participate in its constant unfolding." But alongside joy, A admits to Moth, come loneliness, exclusion, and unfulfilled desire. The Lonely Letters is an epistolary blackqueer critique of the normative world in which Ashon T. Crawley--writing as A--meditates on the interrelation of blackqueer life, sounds of the Black church, theology, mysticism, and love. Throughout his letters, A explores blackness and queerness in the musical and embodied experience of Blackpentecostal spaces and the potential for platonic and erotic connection in a world that conspires against blackqueer life. Both a rigorous study and a performance, The Lonely Letters gestures toward understanding the capacity for what we study to work on us, to transform us, and to change how we inhabit the world.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1478008245
• ISBN13: 9781478008248
• Release Date: April 2020
• Publisher: Duke University Press
• Length: 280 Pages
• Weight: 1.15 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 6.7" x 8.5"