Review of There Will Be No Miracles Here by Casey Gerald
Riverhead Books, 2018
The outline of Gerald’s memoir—a young, black, gay male grows up poor and largely abandoned by his parents ultimately attends Yale and Harvard, achieving more than he could have imagined—raises certain expectations. Gerald does his best to subvert those expectations, an approach that makes his memoir much more interesting than most. He could have chosen to angle his story to suggest one where he pulled himself up by his bootstraps. However, even when he has gotten to the Ivy League, he acknowledges the privilege that education gives him and will continue to give him, as he uses one connection after another to have opportunities those outside of such educational environments will never have. Gerald is also open about his mistakes and failings, showing how he has hurt others and allowed others to hurt him due to his poor decisions, some of which are understandable, while some make readers want to give Gerald a solid shake. My one critique is that Gerald takes a while to establish a clear narrative voice, even writing one interlude in the voice of his child self at the time of the event, which distracts from his story. That evens out as the work progresses, and Gerald’s skeptical take on what could have been a stereotypical, uplifting story instead explores important questions about class, race, gender, and sexuality.
Riverhead Books, 2018
The outline of Gerald’s memoir—a young, black, gay male grows up poor and largely abandoned by his parents ultimately attends Yale and Harvard, achieving more than he could have imagined—raises certain expectations. Gerald does his best to subvert those expectations, an approach that makes his memoir much more interesting than most. He could have chosen to angle his story to suggest one where he pulled himself up by his bootstraps. However, even when he has gotten to the Ivy League, he acknowledges the privilege that education gives him and will continue to give him, as he uses one connection after another to have opportunities those outside of such educational environments will never have. Gerald is also open about his mistakes and failings, showing how he has hurt others and allowed others to hurt him due to his poor decisions, some of which are understandable, while some make readers want to give Gerald a solid shake. My one critique is that Gerald takes a while to establish a clear narrative voice, even writing one interlude in the voice of his child self at the time of the event, which distracts from his story. That evens out as the work progresses, and Gerald’s skeptical take on what could have been a stereotypical, uplifting story instead explores important questions about class, race, gender, and sexuality.