In fact, the collection may include only nine stories, but in each of them, Brinkley gives us an entire world. It also deals in family relationships, love, aging, loss, and disappointment - the universal themes that keep us coming back to literature - while also conveying versions of black male experience. And while it's clearly a topic that concerns him, Brinkley's book isn't only about masculinity. And this is the line Brinkley knows how to straddle, creating fully formed characters who wrestle with what they think they have a right to. There's a fine line between outright, blatant, or malicious sexism and this more comfortable, seemingly less offensive place where men are merely ignorant of the ways they take possession of women - their looks, their labor, their humanity. the collection is intent on recognizing what masculinity looks like, questioning our expectations of it, and criticizing its toxicity - and somehow managing to do all of that with love.
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