JANUARY 2021 - AudioFile
This author-narrated audiobook takes aim at the myths and mores that buttress what many in the U.S. call the American Dream. Award-winning author Mychal Denzel Smith, with refreshing frankness, argues that “the American Dream is bullsh*t” because of the way its seemingly benign narratives preoccupy us to the point that we can’t see our own complicity in oppressive systems. There’s much to appreciate about Smith’s vision, truth telling, and gorgeous turns of phrase. A particular strength of the audiobook is Smith’s conversational and empathetic narration, which will have listeners nodding and talking back in agreement. Don’t miss this. G.P. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award © AudioFile 2021, Portland, Maine
Publishers Weekly
★ 06/08/2020
Journalist Smith (Invisible Man, Got the Whole World Watching) addresses familiar topics through a fresh lens in these searing essays. Contending that the divisions and inequities of the Trump era are “not an aberration,” Smith analyzes recent events including Colin Kaepernick’s national anthem protest, Bernie Sanders’s presidential campaign, and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s political rise, as well as historical antecedents. He laments that his great-great-great grandfather, who was born into slavery in 1836, was prohibited by North Carolina law from learning to read and write, and therefore “left no record of his internal life.” Taking up the issue of police brutality, Smith notes that when the first modern police force was founded in 19th-century London, its main functions included guarding private property and putting down labor strikes, and that policing in the American South involved forestalling slave rebellions. “White supremacist heteropatriarchal capitalism” brought America to its current state, argues Smith, who also puts the matter in more graphic terms: “Pimping (not sex work) is capitalism in its purest form.” Infused with righteous indignation and astute observation, this is a must-read progressive polemic. Agent: Jessica Papin, Dystel, Goderich & Bourret. (Sept.)
From the Publisher
"Slim, impactful....Stakes Is High is a polemic in the best sense of the word, holding up a mirror to America in the hope that a clear-eyed glimpse of its failings will assist in the never-ending struggle to bring about the righteous nation it has always aspired to be."—Booklist, starred
"[Smith] is sharply self-aware, and he would seem to expect his reader to approach his fine-honed argument with the same seriousness. Doing so is well worth the effort. An urgent and provocative work that deserves the broadest possible audience."
—Kirkus Reviews, starred
"A clear-eyed and down-to-earth analysis of the broken foundation of the American Dream and how our culture can move past it....As the book's title and its author suggest: the stakes are high."
—TheGrio
"Smith's galvanizing rhetoric implores a commitment to honesty.... This passionate book is a plea for the U.S. to recognize the delusions casting it as an equal, just country and to see revolution as necessary."—Shelf Awareness
"[Stakes Is High] is beautiful, grim, yet hopeful of a future in which we choose to act collectively and work together to create a new narrative of America."—Electric Literature
"With searing vision and unwavering clarity, Mychal Denzel Smith dismantles our most enduring myths and dangerous national illusions. His argument is personal, intimate. It calls on us, line by line, to do the hard work of truthful living: to hold past and present, love and criticism, up in equal measure. Stakes Is High will undoubtedly prove to be one of the most important works of the decade; as social critique, as personal essay, as a master class in language. Keep it within arm's length; you'll be reaching for it long after you've read the last line."—Téa Obreht, author of Inland
"Stakes Is High is Mychal Denzel Smith's gift to us. With compassion and intelligence, he shows us what justice is meant to be in America."—Common
"Mychal Denzel Smith has written an emotional break-up letter with hope. In his meditations on the pillars of American life, Smith challenges us to accept our complicity in the systems that link our fortunes to our oppressions. It is elegantly written and lovingly argued."—Tressie McMillan Cottom, author of Thick: And Other Essays
"I want this book in the hands of everyone it would affect, which is to say, those with power and those lacking power; those of every race and ethnicity who are affected by the United States government; those who have hope, those who do not, and those who are somewhere in between. Smith writes with urgency and brilliance, honing prose to a fine glimmer as he demonstrates, again and again, life after the American Dream."—Esmé Weijun Wang, author of The Collected Schizophrenias
"Mychal Denzel Smith's Stakes is High is the book we need. It dismantles American lies and instead offers a truth that feels like fire. Smith moves from point to point with a brilliant agility founded on a deep understanding of our history. A truly spectacular book."—Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah, author of Friday Black
"Stakes Is High is that rare book written before the pandemic that predicts the American response to the pandemic and also provides a soulful, rigorous way out of the destruction. Mychal Denzel Smith is the rarest of tenacious writers who remind us that the only way into a dignified free future is backwards. And our refusal to go walk back together makes the stakes highest for the most vulnerable children of tomorrow."—Kiese Laymon, author of Heavy: An American Memoir
"Nuanced, intimate, and sharp in its view of America's history and present, Mychal Denzel Smith's Stakes Is High offers a clear-eyed view of this nation's inequities, shortcomings, and self-deceptions. It's a beautifully written, timely and illuminating book."—Rebecca Traister, author of Good and Mad: The Revolutionary Power of Women's Anger
"Stakes Is High is a passionate, urgent book, a personal account of a contemporary New York political education, and a call to confront the emergency with clarity and truthfulness about the history that brought us here."—Hari Kunzru, author of White Tears
"From one of our country's clearest truth-tellers comes this collection detailing why we've arrived at this current moment and how we can move beyond it. Stakes Is High confronts the inherent failures of the American dream, the dangers and delusions of American empire, and helps us imagine ourselves into a more just future."—Lisa Ko, author of The Leavers
"A fresh, modern, thrilling call for humanity to come together as well as a brilliant investigation into what it means to be an American. Stakes Is High is required reading."—Jami Attenberg, author of All This Could Be Yours
"Stakes is High is a marvel, and each page shines with miraculously unfailing clarity and grace. I want this radiant book to be a common read for our entire troubled country."—R.O. Kwon, author of The Incendiaries
Library Journal
09/01/2020
Choosing a president does not excuse one from democratic duties, argues Smith (Invisible Man, Got the Whole World Watching) in this latest work. This political examination employs the tools of memoir to make a powerful entry into the post-Trump discussion. In a much-needed dissection of the continuous "unwinding" of the United States, Smith argues that the nation has never been united, and that the hideousness of this moment has been long brewing. He bridges contemporary political discussions with an eagle-eyed examination of history to dissect people's mounting disillusionment. Central to the national delusion as he sees it is the question of what is political. "Pickup trucks and oak trees are apolitical only if no one you have ever loved has had their body dragged behind one or hanged from the other." Years and years of "depoliticization" have obfuscated the violent means by which our government has enriched white people and oppressed poor people of color, he maintains. While the book is centered on racial inequalities, Smith also looks at gender and the Me Too movement. VERDICT This is not always easy book, but it is one that sees the United States for what it is. A searing combination of memoir and commentary that makes for essential reading.—Sierra Dickey, Brattleboro, VT
JANUARY 2021 - AudioFile
This author-narrated audiobook takes aim at the myths and mores that buttress what many in the U.S. call the American Dream. Award-winning author Mychal Denzel Smith, with refreshing frankness, argues that “the American Dream is bullsh*t” because of the way its seemingly benign narratives preoccupy us to the point that we can’t see our own complicity in oppressive systems. There’s much to appreciate about Smith’s vision, truth telling, and gorgeous turns of phrase. A particular strength of the audiobook is Smith’s conversational and empathetic narration, which will have listeners nodding and talking back in agreement. Don’t miss this. G.P. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award © AudioFile 2021, Portland, Maine
Kirkus Reviews
★ 2020-06-27
A young Black man surveys the landscape and finds America a poisonous, broken place—but perhaps not irretrievably so.
Toward the end of his second book, Smith asks an arresting question: “Is the potential for the American Dream worth enduring the brutality of American life?” Anyone who has followed the headlines recently knows that life for African Americans is fraught with peril, the American dream ever more distant. This dangerous moment in history, writes the author, is “not an aberration…it is the course this country has always been on.” Exponents of “Afro-pessimism,” such as Frank Wilderson III, have expressed considerable—and well-placed—doubt as to whether things can ever get better, though Smith sees a flicker of hope and closes with guarded optimism: “Imagining where we want to go teaches us how to get there. No one ever said it would be simple, only that it is possible.” Meanwhile, there are the present realities to consider, some of them embodied in the person of Donald Trump, whom Smith considers absolutely the wrong person to be in office, if one who represents a logical point on a continuum of racism and reaction. The right New Yorker for the job, he writes, was Shirley Chisholm, who is coming in for fresh appreciation half a century after her run for office. Even so, “Chisholm was never going to be elected president. Donald Trump was inevitable.” Yet she was a serious candidate, just as Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez is serious—though, Smith counsels, what is more important is that the many people out there who are of like mind be encouraged to bring democratic socialism into office. The author is sharply self-aware (“Sometimes, reader, I write ‘you’ when I’m too afraid to admit my own failures”), and he would seem to expect his reader to approach his fine-honed argument with the same seriousness. Doing so is well worth the effort.
An urgent and provocative work that deserves the broadest possible audience.
