Negative Space is a detective story as Lilly seeks out her father’s past. He passed away when she was a very young girl. He was a brilliant artists, but tortured by addiction.
It deals with identity, Black masculinity, shame, family, oppression, racism, and community. What a book, man, what a book.
We also dig into Brian’s writing process and how he goes about the work.
“I’m the queen of the run-on sentence,” he says.
And the grind of it all.
“I’m the queen of quitting,” he says.
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He’s a punk rocker and a killer spinner of yarns. It’s a fantastic book on “navigating Blackness, masculinity, and young adulthood: all through wry social commentary and a music/pop culture critique.
We talk a lot about the DIY nature of art, punk rock, straight-edge culture and why he chose to write this book to his younger brother.