Island in the City: A Memoir

What forges the unique human personality? In Island in the City Micah McCrary, taking his genetic inheritance as immutable, considers the role geography has played in shaping who he is. Place often leaves indelible marks: the badges of self-discovery; the scars from adversity and hardship; the gilded stamps from personal triumphs; the tattoos of memory; and the new appendages-friendships, experiences, and baggage-we carry with us. Each place, with its own personality, has the power to form or revise our personhood in surprising and fascinating ways.McCrary considers three places he has called home (Normal, Illinois; Chicago; and Prague) and reflects on how these surroundings have shaped him. His sharp-eyed, charming memoir-in-essays contemplates how aspects of his identity, such as being black, male, middle-class, queer, and American, have developed and been influenced by where he hangs his hat.

Reviews of Island in the City: A Memoir

"In these searching essays Micah McCrary takes us from Normal-both the place and the idea-to Chicago and Prague as he reckons with race, sex, money, and what it means to be at home."-Eula Biss, author of On Immunity: An Inoculation — Eula Biss "In Island in the City Micah McCrary dares over and over again to articulate the consequences of race, place, and the perils of having a sensitive and very particular sentience. Daring nonfiction is never quite normal; it is always an island in a city of conventional thought. McCrary's work gives the reader this refuge and this challenge."-David Lazar, author of I'll Be Your Mirror: Essays and Aphorisms — David Lazar