The New York Times Book Review - Jason Parham
I could have written at length about Watkins's lean, casual prose and how it was difficult to sustain throughout; situations often skyrocket unexpectedly or plunge without much explanation. But I would have missed the book's larger aim. The thread that connects The Cook Up with the author's previous true-to-life treatise, The Beast Side: Living (and Dying) While Black in America, and with his columns for Salon is, to me, of greater importance: It is Watkins's belief in the telling of black stories, in their ugliness and in their beauty.
From the Publisher
"D. Watkins is beautifully unusual. Having lived the horrors within the heart of our inner city Baltimore first-hand and having acquired the heights of collegiate achievement, D. Watkins is uniquely equipped to communicate our political and social challenges of urban America not only through the lens of academia but through empirical knowledge as well. He is the voice of the future seamlessly blending the wisdom of the streets and intellectual prowess in a way I have never experienced before."—Jada Pinkett Smith
"The East Baltimore of D. Watkins is distant from where I live by twenty-five, maybe thirty blocks. It might as well be a country other than my own. This is the United State we abandoned and then forgot, the margins of a thriving, information-age America where mass labor is no longer essential, where the factories and warehouses and piers are empty or gone, and where Johns Hopkins University is the second largest employer -next to the illegal drug trade. And the corners are always hiring. That Watkins threaded his way from those corners to the page is rare enough. That he is so committed to pulling this world through with him-enough of it to at least rub our noses in it and make us acknowledge some collective responsibility—is precious. These are angry pages."—David Simon, author of The Corner and creator, HBO's The Wire
"THE COOK UP delivers a raw and honest account of life in East Baltimore and a narrative of incredible strength and redemption. D. Watkins is truly an artist."—King Mez, hip-hop artist
"D. Watkins is his generation's David Simon. Another brilliant storyteller who takes you into the heart of East Baltimore and never flinches as he shows you the real."—Touré, author of Who's Afraid of Post-Blackness? What It Means to Be Black Now
"Amazing storytelling that brings us deep into the reality of East Baltimore. A moving and important piece of contemporary memoir."—Wes Moore, New York Times bestselling author of The Work and The Other Wes Moore
"THE COOK UP is an important story for both black and white America, as well as this country's political leadership, to read, if we're truly going to tackle the challenges that are facing our communities all across the country."—Chuck Todd, correspondent on NBC's Meet the Press
"THE COOK UP is classic and cinematic, told with an observational acuity that hits you where it hurts."—Frannie Kelley, host of NPR's Microphone Check
"THE COOK UP is an unflinching, raw, coming-of-age account of the personal impact of the drug trade. Simply a must-read."—DeRay Mckesson, activist and organizer
"D. Watkins' THE COOK UP is a bold, necessary dispatch from the streets, where a kid born into a hustler's life must fight for survival-and his soul. Watkins may have been a drug dealer, but he was caught up in his own addictions: To rampant consumerism, the numbness of Percocets, and a fantasy of the high-flying American dream. His book shows the astonishing evolution of a man who traded cheap fixes for the mighty power of the written word."—Sarah Hepola, New York Times bestselling author of Blackout: Remembering the Things I Drank to Forget
"Bleakly humorous, original prose, which pinballs between stoned, brand-focused, hip-hop excess and a more contemplative tone...Watkins provides a gritty, vivid first-person document of a desperate demographic."—Kirkus Reviews
"In the tradition of James Baldwin's "Letter From a Region in My Mind," THE COOK UP is a personal history that complicates racial stereotypes...Watkins knows his readers live in different Americas. THE COOK UP is their invitation to notice one another standing in the same line."—TheAtlantic.com
"Stunning."—Baltimore City Paper, Best Memoir 2016
Kirkus Reviews
2016-03-03
A memoir of growing up and selling drugs on East Baltimore's bloody corners. Watkins follows up his acclaimed The Beast Side: Living (and Dying) While Black in America (2015) with a personalized account of the lure of the gangster life for many inner-city black Americans, as well as the grim circumstances propelling them into it. The author opens with his beloved brother's senseless murder ("selling drugs seemed legal where you lived and he taught you how to be extra careful because bodies dropped every day") and chronicles how, devastated, he used an inheritance of drugs and money to enter "the game" himself. This occurred with incongruous ease, as his new crew retook an old drug corner. "Street fortunes were made and lost there," he writes. "My Uncle Gee had it for the longest." With canny promotion and good-quality product, Watkins established himself as a prominent, low-key dealer: "I could stack a few hundred grand without shooting anyone while I figured my life out, met some girls, and had some fun." Things proceeded smoothly, despite occasional violent incursions and Watkins' awareness that his operation, though discreet, fueled the community's most destructive aspects even while contributing economically to it. He ultimately extricated himself and entered college as his erstwhile colleagues paid the costs of addiction and felony charges. The author's writing projects keen awareness of both the mediated image of the young black dealer and the actual grim life prospects for a generation of his inner-city peers. His memoir's strengths include its bleakly humorous, original prose, which pinballs between stoned, brand-focused, hip-hop excess and a more contemplative tone, and the many true, touching, or disturbing small details from the fraught daily lives of America's black underclass. However, many narrative threads trail off unresolved, beginning with his brother's murder, which fuels the story yet is left unaddressed. A familiar story to fans of The Wire, but Watkins provides a gritty, vivid first-person document of a desperate demographic.
