Book Review: This Here Flesh by Cole Arthur Riley

This post is a book review and brief discussion of 'This Here Flesh' by New York Times best-selling author, Cole Arthur Riley.

What Is 'This Here Flesh'?

I would classify this work as part memoir, part social commentary, part poetry, and all heart. Cole takes us through the threads that weave the story of her family and thus, her. We are as flies on the wall as she shares the joys, traumas, and triumphs that shaped the people that shaped her; particularly her grandmother and her father, but I feel too the delicacy and strength of the loving bond with her sister. Each relationship, a transformative love.

For me, this work is about family and about memories- the importance of shared history and the imperativeness of its remembrance.

Paradoxically, it's also about the transient nature of all things. We need to remember because soon we will forget and be forgotten. Cole shares her personal struggles with the unknown disease that is robbing her of her faculties; her movement, her sight. I see poetry in her desire to look past herself, through time, to the moments that would come to form her flesh.

What I Loved About 'This Here Flesh'

This book gave me life. It delivered to me a piece of myself and I'm still not sure which piece but I'm not convinced that's the important part. The important part, I think, is that I felt richer and more tangible the more I read. It was more than feeling seen, it was being held. I felt held. Contained. Arthur's words felt like a constant presence and comfort, even when it was uncomfortable and even painful.

I appreciated the peek into the dark corners of the house that is her life. She took us under the rug, behind the shed, and into the basement. Her level of vulnerability is powerful. I am in awe of this kind of giving and I am inspired by it. I wish to strengthen my own voice to the point of sharing as freely my truest parts, to take proud and complete ownership of them.

My Biggest Takeaway From 'This Here Flesh' Surprised Me

I like challenging my perspectives and I find it easy to reach for books that promise to do that. What I struggle with more are perspectives that are almost mine. Perspectives that are just adjacent to what I believe, or even the same but through a different lens. They feel like a coat I could wear comfortably and look good in even though it doesn't fit me perfectly.

I've learned, in part from this book, that I like my lenses and I'm protective of them more than I'd like to be. I'm seeing this as an invitation to let those other views live just as they are and feel no need to shift them ever so slightly to align perfectly with mine. I don't need to alter this coat. It's not mine.

I recognize this impulse of struggling with these 'almost mine' views as akin to my lifelong habit of getting nervous when I watch another black person do anything in mixed company. That idea that whatever they do somehow represents and reflects on me. That holding of breath. This recognition has been like a folded note silently passed to me that reads 'you're not breathing', and now, I can exhale.

What I now know is that...

I can see the works of other black people as truly their own. I can like it and even harder, dislike it without being a traitor. I can accept that what other black people do likely will and does reflect on me. And I can see that for the first time as the joyous burden that it is. It's the burden of belonging. It's the joy of belonging.

I can claim my tribe and be nestled in the space of belonging and be separate enough to judge it too. I now also have an understanding of those who choose to disassociate, because I now get that I can do that too. I can do all things.

I think I understood this intellectually, but I think it just sank into a knowing in my bones with this book. If for this reason alone, this book, I suspect, has changed my life.

This has made me a better reader, especially of the voices that are so close to my own that I previously almost avoided them for that very reason. This is the first time I've been able to name this and recognizing it has been a groundbreaking shift that has liberated me forever.

How do you begin to thank a person for such a thing? I cannot know. I will honor it by reading deeply from the voices that I most crave- the joy of a thirst I can finally quench. By celebrating their brilliance and listening to their truth. By letting them change me, or not. By not fearing either anymore. I can hope and try to write something one day that may plant the seeds for the same liberation in someone else. I can hope to pay it forward.

What You May Not Like About 'This Here Flesh'

I did find this book to be heavily weighed by the beliefs of Riley's Christian upbringing. I don't mind this, but I bring it up because some might. My husband, for example, loved the book but felt these religious elements were 'preachy' in such a way that they pulled him out of it. He has strong and negative feelings about religion so this makes sense. You might too.

But, as I said, it didn't bother me. Firstly, I think it's really great that she showed up in her fullness. A journey into her and her formation wouldn't be complete without all the parts, and it's clear that religion is a big one.

Secondly, I think she did it well. Her intention wasn't to preach and I didn't receive it that way. I appreciated her grappling with her own faith now (as she currently understands it) and then (as it was passed down to her). I felt her own questioning of her beliefs. I appreciated her discussion on her evolving spirituality.

Verdict: 4.5 Stars

I highly recommend this book. It is such a generous offering by Cole Arthur Riley. It reads like a chat with a friend. Yet, at the same time it is a deeply personal, spiritual, and equally intellectual commentary on trauma, life in a black and female body, love, loss, joy, and home using the one vehicle we all understand- family. It moved me.

It is, of course, also so much more than this and you can only grasp what it is by encountering it. So please read it. I got this at my library but I will soon buy it so I can always have the words near me when I want them and need them.

Let me know if you pick it up and what you think of it.

Happy reading and talk soon,

Nonjabulo