This Brilliant Darkness: A Book of Strangers Contributor(s): Sharlet, Jeff (Author) |
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ISBN: 1324003200 ISBN-13: 9781324003205 Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company OUR PRICE: $22.50 Product Type: Hardcover - Other Formats Published: February 2020 |
Additional Information |
BISAC Categories: - Social Science | Poverty & Homelessness - Social Science | Social Classes & Economic Disparity - Photography | Photoessays & Documentaries |
Dewey: 818.603 |
LCCN: 2019030058 |
Physical Information: 1.1" H x 6.2" W x 8.4" (1.30 lbs) 336 pages |
Descriptions, Reviews, Etc. |
Publisher Description: Known for immersion journalism that is more immersed than most people are willing to go, and for a prose style that is somehow both fierce and soulful, Jeff Sharlet dives deep into the darkness around us and awaiting us. This work began when his father had a heart attack; two years later, Jeff, still in his forties, had a heart attack of his own. In the grip of writerly self-doubt, Jeff turned to images, taking snapshots and posting them on Instagram, writing short, true stories that bloomed into documentary. During those two years, he spent a lot of time on the road: meeting strangers working night shifts as he drove through the mountains to see his father; exploring the life and death of Charley Keunang, a once-aspiring actor shot by the police on LA's Skid Row; documenting gay pride amidst the violent homophobia of Putin's Russia; passing time with homeless teen addicts in Dublin; and accompanying a lonely woman, whose only friend was a houseplant, on shopping trips. Early readers have called this book "incantatory," the voice "prophetic," in "James Agee's tradition of looking at the reality of American lives." Defined by insomnia and late-night driving and the companionship of other darkness-dwellers--night bakers and last-call drinkers, frightened people and frightening people, the homeless, the lost (or merely disoriented), and other people on the margins--This Brilliant Darkness erases the boundaries between author, subject, and reader to ask: how do people live with suffering? |
Contributor Bio(s): Sharlet, Jeff: - Jeff Sharlet is associate professor of English and Creative Writing at Dartmouth College, and the best-selling author of The Family (made into a Netflix documentary series), This Brilliant Darkness, C Street, and Sweet Heaven When I Die. His work has earned numerous awards, including the National Magazine Award and the Outspoken Award. |