{"product_id":"island-in-the-city-9781496207869","title":"Island in the City","description":"\u003cb\u003eBook Synopsis\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cdiv\u003eWhat forges the unique human personality? In \u003ci\u003eIsland in the City\u003c\/i\u003eMicah McCrary, taking his genetic inheritance as immutable, considers the role geography has played in shaping who he is. Place often leaves indelible marks: the badges of self-discovery; the scars from adversity and hardship; the gilded stamps from personal triumphs; the tattoos of memory; and the new appendages—friendships, experiences, and baggage—we carry with us. Each place, with its own personality, has the power to form or revise our personhood in surprising and fascinating ways.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e McCrary considers three places he has called home (Normal, Illinois; Chicago; and Prague) and reflects on how these surroundings have shaped him. His sharp-eyed, charmingmemoir-in-essays contemplates how aspects of his identity, such as being black, male, middle-class, queer, and American, have developed and been influenced by where he hangs his hat.\u003c\/div\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eTrade Review\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"In the latest entry in the publisher's American Lives series, McCrary writes of becoming aware of his black heritage early in life but also about the impression his skin color had on others in small-town Normal, Illinois, in the 1980s and '90s. . . . A slim yet potent and intimately ruminative debut memoir on travel, maturity, and culture.\"—\u003ci\u003eKirkus\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"McCrary takes readers down his memory lane. Some memories are loving and others are haunting. But the entire journey is transformative each step of the way. He lets us in on his point of view of culture and takes readers along on his travels as we watch him come into his true self.\"—Amber Ogden, \u003ci\u003eHippocampus Magazine\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“In \u003ci\u003eIsland in the City\u003c\/i\u003e Micah McCrary dares over and over again to articulate the consequences of race, place, and the perils of having a sensitive and very particular sentience. Daring nonfiction is never quite normal; it is always an island in a city of conventional thought. McCrary’s work gives the reader this refuge and this challenge.”—David Lazar, author of \u003ci\u003eI’ll Be Your Mirror: Essays and Aphorisms\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“In these searching essays Micah McCrary takes us from Normal—both the place and the idea—to Chicago and Prague as he reckons with race, sex, money, and what it means to be at home.”—Eula Biss, author of \u003ci\u003eOn Immunity: An Inoculation\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eTable of Contents\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAcknowledgments\u003cbr\u003e NORMAL\u003cbr\u003e Oreo\u003cbr\u003e Postures of Privilege\u003cbr\u003e To Rebel against Men\u003cbr\u003e Ever the Moth\u003cbr\u003e CHICAGO\u003cbr\u003e Metropolis\u003cbr\u003e Green and Gray\u003cbr\u003e Geraldyne's Room\u003cbr\u003e Two Cities\u003cbr\u003e Playground City\u003cbr\u003e PRAGUE\u003cbr\u003e Snow Globe Bohemia\u003cbr\u003e Island in the City\u003cbr\u003e A Good Fake Czech\u003cbr\u003e Cabaret\u003cbr\u003e An Idea of Prague\u003cbr\u003e Epilogue\u003cbr\u003e Works Cited","brand":"University of Nebraska Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":49409222213975,"sku":"9781496207869","price":13.29,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0817\/1739\/5799\/files\/9781496207869.jpg?v=1730506014","url":"https:\/\/bookcurl.com\/products\/island-in-the-city-9781496207869","provider":"Book Curl","version":"1.0","type":"link"}