Publishers Weekly
03/26/2018
The nine stories in Brinkley’s promising debut address persistent issues of race, class, and masculinity across three decades of New York City’s history, from Manhattan’s corporatization in the mid-’90s to the outer boroughs’ gentrification today. In “No More Than a Bubble,” two black Columbia undergrads crash a very white house party in Brooklyn, where they pair off with two older women with confounding, less-than-successful results. An imaginative young man finds his expectations of upper-middle-class life dashed during a day trip to the suburbs in “I Happy Am,” while a former convict reconnects with a dead buddy’s girlfriend in “A Family.” “A Lucky Man” and “Clifton’s Place” are the collection’s two most successful stories, conveying the particular sadness of older African-Americans left adrift by market forces and “revitalization.” Other entries, in plot and in prose, can feel too polite and mannered to register as memorable, nodding toward a stylistic exuberance and transgressive edge that never fully appear. Nonetheless, Brinkley’s stories offer penetrating perspectives and stirring tragedies. Agent: Jin Auh, Wylie Agency. (May)
From the Publisher
Each story is a trenchant exploration of race and class, vividly conveying the tension between social codes of masculinity and the vulnerable, volatile self.”—The New Yorker
“[A Lucky Man] is intent on recognizing what masculinity looks like, questioning our expectations of it, and criticizing its toxicity—and somehow managing to do all of that with love. . . . The collection may include only nine stories, but in each of them, Brinkley gives us an entire world.”—NPR.org
“With equal parts precision and poetry, these nine audacious stories step into the minefields awaiting boys of color as they approach manhood in Brooklyn and the Bronx—testing the limits of relationships, social norms, and their own definitions of masculinity.”—O, The Oprah Magazine
“Through pages of peerless prose and startlingly sharp sentences, what ultimately emerges is a constantly reframed argument about the role and power of masculinity, where vulnerability pulses beneath a skin of self preservation.”—Los Angeles Times
“Brinkley’s collection A Lucky Man, already creating waves within the literary sphere, manages to be simultaneously polemical and immersive, in a series of tenderly insightful studies of masculinity, race, and the scars of history.”—Entertainment Weekly
“The stories hit with a silent thunder that reverberates within you long after you’ve finished them.”—San Francisco Chronicle
“Brinkley shows both the great beauty and ugliness of humanity—but always with empathy—and captures the ways in which our world is defined and divided by power.”—BuzzFeed
“What a distinct pleasure it is to get in on the early side of a burgeoning career, to read a work that introduces a new and important voice in the literary world. The stores in Jamel Brinkley’s debut are both confident in their execution and profoundly moving in their style.”—Maris Kreizman, Vulture
“Amazingly insightful and emotionally nuanced.”—Curtis Sittenfeld, Vulture
“Spectacular. . . . Quite simply stunning. . . . [Jamel Brinkley] shines a light on difficult truths.”—Nylon
“A well-deserved finalist for the National Book Award for Fiction, these sharply focused and elegantly written stories grapple with race, relationships and the many facets of that complex beast, masculinity. . . . Jamel Brinkley hits the mark and leaves a profound impression.”—Malcolm Forbes, Star Tribune (Minneapolis)
“All the pieces in A Lucky Man offer exquisitely crafted glimpses into the lives of black men and boys living in New York. . . . This is Brinkley’s first collection, and if his talent for exacting vivisection of his protagonists continues, he’ll be a talent to reckon with.”—Vox
“An unmissable debut short story collection, Jamel Brinkley’s poignant A Lucky Man is revelatory in its crafting of prose and language. A wonderful read.”—The Root
“Beautifully wrought. . . . Brinkley synthesizes empathy and accountability with controlled, sharp lyricism and a big steady heart.”—Shelf Awareness
“With a wise and wistful touch, Brinkley offers us a series of portraits of black men—New York City natives, all—who cannot square their desires with the demands of a culture that expects masculinity, self-sufficiency and confidence. . . . There is an effortless feeling to Brinkley’s sentences, a casual beauty that lends poignance to all his confused boys, his sad and angry men.”—Longreads
“Full of grace, complexity, and candor.”—Merriam-Webster.com
“Brinkley’s commitment to creating complex characters and allowing them to exist as they are, regardless of the consequences, is one of his many strengths. . . . The precision through which Brinkley employs detail gives his stories such a rich and singular feel that it’s hard to compare him to anybody.”—The Adroit Journal
“A collection as fine as this, of fiction that is reflecting our world and searching for the truth, is one to be treasured, read and reread, admired, and loved.”—Ploughshares
“This is an assured and important collection that could not be more timely.”—Kenyon Review
“A Lucky Man . . . reminds me of Moonlight. . . . Brinkley explores black men under both the pressurized violence and bottled up tenderness that undoes them at every turn. This is a book that acknowledges male stereotypes while subverting them and exploring the psychic damage they leave in their wake.”—KQED, “The Spine”
“In Brinkley’s work, no character is left untended, no aspect of identity is overlooked, and the results are well-inhabited worlds that feel infinite. . . . A Lucky Man is not only a standout debut for the year, but also a testament to what can be achieved in a short story.”—Chicago Review of Books
“Among A Lucky Man’s many wonderful accomplishments—the way the length of each story affords its characters room to move; the use of linear, progressive time to knit the individual stories into a social fabric, a‘ la Alice Munro or Wideman—one in particular is genuinely path-clearing. Brinkley offers visions of manhood and masculinity that demonstrate candor without false intensity, desire without ownership. His male characters have fictional experiences that, in the hands of the right reader, can become equipment for living.”—Los Angeles Review of Books
“Brinkley’s stories are precious without being fragile. They’re quiet, masterpieces in mood, tone, characterization, and family dynamics.”—PopMatters
“Each of Brinkley’s true-to-life stories offers the reader marvelous depth and insight into the complex emotional landscapes of America’s wayward sons.”—Duende
“With stunning clarity and generosity of detail, each of the nine stories leaves its own lasting impression, while the book as a whole coalesces into a devastating tapestry of confused masculinity, familial responsibility, and the intractable power of privilege to impede upon and redraw the boundaries of a life.”—American Short Fiction
“Brinkley’s debut collection, A Lucky Man, comprised of tenderly poignant narratives of boys becoming men, of fractured intimacy, of masculinity as learned performance, is vital and necessary.”—The Masters Review
“An assured debut collection. . . . It's difficult to single out any story as most outstanding since they are each distinguished by Brinkley's lyrical invention, precise descriptions of both emotional and physical terrain, and a prevailing compassion toward people as bemused by travail as they are taken aback by whatever epiphanies blossom before them. A major talent.”—Kirkus Reviews, starred review
“With this memorable collection, Brinkley emerges as a gifted and empathetic new writer.”—Booklist, starred review
“The nine stories in Brinkley’s promising debut address persistent issues of race, class, and masculinity across three decades of New York City’s history. . . . Brinkley’s stories offer penetrating perspectives and stirring tragedies.”—Publishers Weekly
Kirkus Reviews
★ 2018-02-20
An assured debut collection of stories about men and women, young and old, living and loving along the margins in Brooklyn and the Bronx.In "I Happy Am," one of nine tales Brinkley spins here about dreamers constricted or confounded by realities, Freddy is a young black boy from the Bronx who, at least for the length of the trip his summer camp is taking to the suburbs, imagines himself as a superpowered robot. Upon finding the house his camp is visiting to be "a bigger version of the apartment where [he] lived," Freddy begins to wonder whether real life "spoke…to what his imagination guarded": that there may be more potential for wonder and mystery beyond his dream life. This story shares with the others a preoccupation with characters' reckoning with unfulfilled promises and unrecognized possibilities. The title of "J'ouvert, 1996" refers to an all-night revel originating at Brooklyn's Grand Army Plaza during which a teenage boy, his wide-eyed younger brother in tow, intends to find, and assert, a grown-up self. In "A Family," an ex-convict grapples tentatively, even a bit reluctantly, with the idea of becoming a lover to the widow of his closest friend. The title story is about a middle-aged man who believes his wife has left him and taken whatever luck he could claim with her, while "Infinite Happiness" navigates the dicey emotional maze of a lopsided romantic triangle playing out in the promised land of present-day Brooklyn. It's difficult to single out any story as most outstanding since they are each distinguished by Brinkley's lyrical invention, precise descriptions of both emotional and physical terrain, and a prevailing compassion toward people as bemused by travail as they are taken aback by whatever epiphanies blossom before them.A major talent.
