In The Only Way Out, Katherine Brewer Ball explores the American fascination with the escape story. Brewer Ball argues that escape is a key site for exploring American conceptions of freedom and constraint. Stories of escape are never told just once but become mythic in their episodic iterations, revealing the fantasies and desires of society, the storyteller, and the listener. While white escape narratives have typically been laden with Enlightenment fantasies of redemption where freedom is available to any individual willing to seize it, Brewer Ball explores how Black and queer escape offer forms of radical possibility. Drawing on Black studies, queer theory, and performance studies, she examines a range of works, from nineteenth-century American literature to contemporary queer of color art and writing by contemporary American artists including Wilmer Wilson IV, Tourmaline, Tony Kushner, Junot Díaz, Glenn Ligon, Toshi Reagon, and Sharon Hayes. Throughout, escape emerges as a story not of individuality but of collectivity and entanglement.
"“The Only Way Out is a great read. Katherine Brewer Ball offers an innovative and stimulating analysis of escape in relation to minoritarian discourses that negate the idea of freedom. Brewer Ball’s emphasis on the performative aspects of escape works to highlight its impossibility, thereby enabling readers to refine their concept of what freedom might even mean, while working simultaneously to redefine the parameters of performance itself.”" - Between Shadows and Noise: Sensation, Situatedness, and the Undisciplined
"In The Only Way Out, Katherine Brewer Ball explores how fully the pursuit of freedom is interwoven into the fibers of Black and queer storytelling. Bridging classic American literature with the defiant voices of contemporary queer narrative and performance, this critical study unpacks the multifaceted theme of escape—a flight not just from oppression but also toward utopian horizons. In lucid and unsparing prose, Brewer Ball models criticism-as-conspiracy against whiteness.”" - Afro-Fabulations: The Queer Drama of Black Life
