VULTURE'S BEST MEMOIR OF THE YEAR 2023
A NEW STATESMAN BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR 2023

When Shane McCrae was eighteen months old, he was removed from his parents and taken to suburban Texas. His mother was white and his dad was Black, and to hide his Blackness from him, his maternal grandparents stole him. In the years that followed, they manipulated and controlled him, believing they were doing what was best for him. His grandmother loved Shane but hated people who looked like him. His grandfather policed any perceived signs of Blackness his grandson showed. In their house, Blackness would always be the worst thing about him.

Pulling the Chariot of the Sun is a revelatory account of what it can mean to be Black in America, written with virtuosity and heart by one of the finest poets writing today. This memoir offers acute insight into the larger story of a people stolen from their homes, dominated by white supremacy and lied to about their own history. And it illuminates how we all might be made whole again, through a tireless search for the truth and the joyful pursuit of what we love.

"Imaginative, lyrical . . . Memory itself is as much the central theme as the kidnapping and its aftermath" - * Daily Telegraph *

"Striking . . . [Full] of many powerfully visceral ruminations on memory" - * Observer *

"Extraordinary . . . a recreation of childhood trauma - and the trauma of never being free as a child to name it as trauma in the feverish pseudo-normality of this incredible and shocking situation. It's about race, class, imagination - and skateboarding - and is packed with passion and energy" - * New Statesman *