Ep. 122 Breathe by Imani Perry — The Stacks Book Club (Kiese Laymon)

We are thrilled to welcome Kiese Laymon (Heavy, Long Division) back to The Stacks for our July book club discussion of Breathe: A Letter to My Sons by Imani Perry. This deeply personal and evocative book brings up many questions that we grapple with around Black identity and family. We also talk about the ways revision is a powerful tool in education and the tradition of the epistolary form.
There are no spoilers on this episode.

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Everything we talk about on today’s episode can be found below in the show notes and on Bookshop.org and Amazon.

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The Stacks Book Club — July 2020

In July The Stacks Book Club will be reading Breathe: A Letter to My Sons by Imani Perry. This short and impactful book implores the reader to see the beauty and struggle of life for America’s young Black men. The book is personal and powerful, and moves between the intimate and the historic with ease. Perry confronts the terror of being a mother to Black sons in a society that was founded in racism and is loyal to that framework to this day. Observations, mistakes, fears, doubts, memories, and lessons are all filtered through Perry’s boundless love for her sons. The past and present come together as one to make a work of nonfiction that is complicated, poetic, and deeply profound.

We will be discussing this episode on the podcast on Wednesday, July 29th, with author Kiese Laymon. If you’d like even more discussion around this book consider joining The Stacks Pack on Patreon and participating in The Stacks’ monthly virtual book club.

As always, we want to hear from you, so please reach out with your thoughts, questions, and things you want to hear discussed on the podcast. You can email us at thestackswithtraci@gmail.com, comment on this post, or reach out through Instagram @thestackspod.

Order your copy of our July book on Bookshop.org or Amazon.


To contribute to The Stacks, join The Stacks Pack, and get exclusive perks, check out our Patreon page (https://www.patreon.com/thestacks). We are beyond grateful for anything you’re able to give to support the production of The Stacks.

The Stacks participates in affiliate programs. We receive a small commission when products are purchased through links on this website, and this comes at no cost to you. This in no way effects opinions on books and products reviewed here. For more information click here.