The Lonely Letters

Ashon T. Crawley

ISBN 10: 1478007761 / ISBN 13: 9781478007760

Published by Duke University Press, US, 2020

About this Item

In The Lonely Letters, A tells Moth: "Writing about and thinking with joy is what sustains me, daily. It nourishes me. I do not write about joy primarily because I always have it. I write about joy, Black joy, because I want to generate it, I want it to emerge, I want to participate in its constant unfolding." But alongside joy, A admits to Moth, come loneliness, exclusion, and unfulfilled desire. The Lonely Letters is an epistolary blackqueer critique of the normative world in which Ashon T. Crawley-writing as A-meditates on the interrelation of blackqueer life, sounds of the Black church, theology, mysticism, and love. Throughout his letters, A explores blackness and queerness in the musical and embodied experience of Blackpentecostal spaces and the potential for platonic and erotic connection in a world that conspires against blackqueer life. Both a rigorous study and a performance, The Lonely Letters gestures toward understanding the capacity for what we study to work on us, to transform us, and to change how we inhabit the world.

Seller Inventory # LU-9781478007760

Bibliographic Details

• Title: The Lonely Letters
• Publisher: Duke University Press, US
• Publication Date: 2020
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1478007761
• ISBN 13: 9781478007760
• Binding: Hardback
• Condition: New
• Weight: 635 grams

About this title

Synopsis

Winner of the 2020 Believer Book Award for Nonfiction presented by The Believer Magazine and the 2021 Lammy Award in Nonfiction awarded by Lambda Literary!

In The Lonely Letters, A tells Moth: "Writing about and thinking with joy is what sustains me, daily. It nourishes me. I do not write about joy primarily because I always have it. I write about joy, Black joy, because I want to generate it, I want it to emerge, I want to participate in its constant unfolding." But alongside joy, A admits to Moth, come loneliness, exclusion, and unfulfilled desire. The Lonely Letters is an epistolary blackqueer critique of the normative world in which Ashon T. Crawley—writing as A—meditates on the interrelation of blackqueer life, sounds of the Black church, theology, mysticism, and love. Throughout his letters, A explores blackness and queerness in the musical and embodied experience of Blackpentecostal spaces and the potential for platonic and erotic connection in a world that conspires against blackqueer life. Both a rigorous study and a performance, The Lonely Letters gestures toward understanding the capacity for what we study to work on us, to transform us, and to change how we inhabit the world.

About the Author

Ashon T. Crawley is Associate Professor of Religious Studies and African American Studies at the University of Virginia and author of Blackpentecostal Breath: The Aesthetics of Possibility.