Pulling the Chariot of the Sun, Shane McCrae
Pulling the Chariot of the Sun, Shane McCrae
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Pulling the Chariot of the Sun
A Memoir of a Kidnapping

Author: Shane McCrae

Narrator: Shane McCrae

Unabridged: 5 hr 25 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 08/01/2023


Synopsis

Vulture’s #1 Memoir of 2023

An unforgettable, “lyrical and poignant” (The Washington Post) memoir by an award-winning poet about being kidnapped from his Black father and raised by his white supremacist grandparents.

When Shane McCrae was three years old, his grandparents kidnapped him and took him to suburban Texas. His mom was white and his dad was Black, and to hide his Blackness from him, his maternal grandparents stole him from his father. In the years that followed, they manipulated and controlled him, refusing to acknowledge his heritage—all the while believing they were doing what was best for him.

For their own safety and to ensure the kidnapping remained a success, Shane’s grandparents had to make sure that he never knew the full story, so he was raised to participate in his own disappearance. But despite elaborate fabrications and unreliable memories, Shane begins to reconstruct his own story and to forge his own identity. Gradually, the truth unveils itself, and with the truth, comes a path to reuniting with his father and finding his own place in the world.

A revelatory account of an American childhood that hauntingly echoes the larger story of race in our country, Pulling the Chariot of the Sun is written with the virtuosity and heart of one of the finest poets writing today. A powerful reflection on what is broken in America—this is “an essential story for our times” (Hilton Als, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of White Girls).

About Shane McCrae

Shane McCrae is the author of several books of poetry, including In the Language of My Captor, which was a finalist for the National Book Award, the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, and the William Carlos Williams Award; Sometimes I Never Suffered, shortlisted for the T.S. Eliot Prize; and his most recent collection, The Many Hundreds of the Scent. McCrae is the recipient of a Whiting Award, a National Endowment for the Arts Literature Fellowship, a Lannan Literary Award, and a Guggenheim Fellowship. He teaches at Columbia University and lives in New York City.


Reviews

Goodreads review by johnny on February 13, 2023

what can’t shane mccrae do? ever since i read “the gilded auction block” i have been obsessed with mccrae’s poetic prowess. i have chosen to write about his poems for multiple classes in grad school. i am enamored with his affinity for word and line. what an honor it is to read this arc, i feel extre......more

Goodreads review by Dona's on July 08, 2024

*July '24 reread. I found an audiobook copy of PULLING THE CHARIOT OF THE SUN by Shane McCrae on Libby. Read by the author. All views are mine. Their hatred is a still blue pond, in which their faces are reflected. ...Their blue water is the white skin of water, across which runs the white path of the......more

Goodreads review by Jax on February 24, 2023

You’ve met the kind of storyteller who starts with a point then rabbit trails through asides, explanations, and mumbling second guesses about factual details, right? This book is a good version of that. Like when Shane describes his six-year-old self breaking into a house because a new friend though......more

Goodreads review by Alyssa on July 31, 2023

I received an ARC of this book from a Goodreads giveaway. It is clear in reading Shane McCrae’s memoir that he’s a talented poet, but I don’t think he’s yet hit his stride with writing longer pieces such as memoirs or novels. The memoir is easy to get lost in, as McCrae often repeats himself and ski......more