Each one of these remarkable essays is a gem. The ones written to the spirit of James Baldwin (including a yearning to be in the number who were allowed to call him "Jimmy") are truly heartfelt and powerful. The author's perspective as a Jamaican is incredibly valuable, as he shares the culture of Carnival in his home country and in Trinidad. His vivid descriptions of his journeys to Ghana and Nigeria, and what he discovers as a Black man in African countries is truly revelatory to him and to the reader. The most touching and tragic essays deal with his Haitian family roots and with his encounters with the gay young men, the "battymen" of Kingston Harbor, and how he sees them through the lens of a gay man who lives in England and in America without being targeted as frequently for violence, nor having to sell himself. Highly recommended for all that can be learned, the beauty of the sentences, and the honesty of the narrative.

Quotes: “Race and ethnicity are not the same things. Ethnicity is what is in your actual DNA, your genes, your ancestry. Race is how society constructs you.”

“How strange it is that the feeling of being out of body is always felt inside the body.”

“Here in Ghana, it is the harmattan – a season I have never felt or witnessed before. It is as if a huge thunderstorm is building, except there is no moisture. What I mistook as fog, I understand now is the tiniest particle of the Sahara Desert.”

“Can I really be a brother in this place if I do not speak a language from here – or if I can only speak to my brothers in the language that separated us from each other?” ( )