Difference between revisions of "Fire Shut Up In My Bones"

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	| name          = Fire Shut Up In My Bones: a memoir		| name          = Fire Shut Up In My Bones: a memoir
	| author        = Charles Blow		| author        = Charles Blow
		+	| image          = [[File:fireshutupinmybones.jpg]]
	| publisher      = Houghton Mifflin Harcourt		| publisher      = Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
	| pub_date      = 2014		| pub_date      = 2014

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Revision as of 16:28, 12 March 2019

Fire Shut Up In My Bones: a memoir
Author(s)	Charles Blow
Publisher	Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Publication date	2014
Pages	240
ISBN	978-0-544-22804-7

Charles Blow’s coming-of-age, introspective, and transformative autobiography Fire Shut Up In My Bones illustrates a long-winding road of self-discovery through trauma, growth, and healing. Throughout the first six chapters he details the early beginnings of his life, from his family dynamics to his ordinary and often extraordinary experiences as a child and his loved ones around him. But most importantly, Blow details the very dark, traumatic experiences of his molestation as a child, the internal struggles he dealt with in result to two tragic instances, and his conflicting relationship with masculinity, identity, and manhood. A story laced with intergenerational pain and resilience under the backdrop of a historically racially segregated town in Louisiana, Blow’s life details the unorthodox nature of home and how the places we are told to feel most comfortable become simultaneous spaces of pleasure and pain.

Blow is an American journalist, commentator, and current columnist for The New York Times. He’s also widely seen on CNN and MSNBC as a political and/or social commentator, typically with left-wing opinions and beliefs. He was recently on CNN discussing his sexual assault as a child during a segment on Dr. Ford’s sexual assault allegations of Brett Kavanaugh. Blow’s honesty and vulnerability are widely expressed and he often gets into heated debates on television. His appeal is marked with transparency, an attribute he’s had to grow for years, as evident in the book; now more than ever he’s unafraid to share and voice who he is.

Since this is a purely autobiographical narrative, Blow refrains from including scholarly, theoretical influences in his work. Instead he derives his ideas through anecdotal reflections of his life, from his mother’s teaching, his father’s (mis)education, and the experiences he has dealt with. It reads poetically and metaphorically; he uses words and references to retell how he felt and what he dealt with without being completely vulnerable, naked to the reader. It was as if his own writing was revelatory to himself; as he wrote, he healed.

His writing on masculinity and manhood are honest and truthful; when he discusses his closeness to his mother and the conflict he endured due to this close relationship, he expressed eloquently why his mother’s influence was so integral to his maturation. His candidness shares something so often missed when discussing young boys, particularly how they should be raised by a man to be a man, but what does that mean? Blow shares a semblance of hope, particularly how healthy parental figures, regardless of gender, are integral to people's lives and maturation. Although Blow continues to grapple with his own manhood, this point in the book explores a sentiment so often dismissed and shunned in coming-of-age stories, particularly of men.

Overall, Blow's assessment of his life display an ongoing process of healing and transformative self-work. His complicated revelations share a difficult understanding for us all, that people are capable of doing both good and bad, and how this has terrible repercussions on the people we become. Blow blurs morality and provides a story of pain and healing, leaving the reader with a sense that Blow's life is still in process. His diary-like self-reflection exhibits an unorthodox resolution to the story, simply that there is not one, echoing how many of our own lives continue non-linearly patiently waiting for a moment to relinquish the fire that burns us alive.