Before You Suffocate Your Own Fool Self, Danielle Evans
“The wrong kind of pretty, the kind that’s soft but not fragile, the kind that inspires the impulse to touch.”
Award-winning American author Danielle Evans’ first short story collection has finally made it to British shores, and we could not be happier. Before you Suffocate your Own Fool Self is a wry, incisive, and deftly crafted collection of stories rooted in contemporary America, capturing timeless and truthful vignettes of black and mixed-race characters who precariously straddle various social or psychological divides.
With a focus on the transient space between childhood and adulthood, Evans’ plots explore the sensitivities and vulnerabilities often associated with coming-of-age conflicts: teenagers contend with their sexuality in Virgins; the intimate and cruel friendships formed between two teenage girls in Snakes; a father and daughter are unable to emotionally connect in Jellyfish; and relationships that linger in an emotional limbo in Wherever You Go, There You Are.
And yet, as the title of the collection suggests, one of the fundamental obstacles Evans’ well-drawn characters must overcome is the foolishness of their own fallible selves.
