With luminous insight and fervent prose, Andre Perry’s debut collection of personal essays, Some of Us Are Very Hungry Now , travels from Washington DC to Iowa City to Hong Kong in search of both individual and national identity. While displaying tenderness and a disarming honesty, Perry catalogs racial degradations committed on the campuses of elite universities and liberal bastions like San Francisco while coming of age in America. The essays in Some of Us Are Very Hungry Now take the form of personal reflection, multiple choice questions, screenplays, and imagined talk-show conversations, while traversing the daily minefields of childhood schoolyards and Midwestern dive-bars. The impression of Perry’s personal journey is arresting and beguiling, while announcing the author’s arrival as a formidable American voice. "Perry writes beautifully about ugly events and feelings. He tackles racism head on and explores his role in fighting it. He also recognizes how his drinking becomes a problem, a momentary escape that provides no lasting solutions... These evasions and chases shape Some of Us Are Very Hungry Now into a rough, heartfelt collection of essays that dig deep into who Perry is and engage the reader in the process with revelations that morph into mirrors that are uncomfortable to look at." ―Danez Smith, LitHub "A complete, deep, satisfying read... The variety of structures, formats, and rhythms Perry uses in Some of Us Are Very Hungry Now is extraordinary... These essays shine with broken humanity and announce the arrival of a new voice in contemporary nonfiction, but they do so with heaps of melancholia and frustration instead of answers. That Perry can hurt us and keep us asking for more is a testament to his talent as a storyteller." ―Gabino Iglesias, NPR "An interrogation of language, pop culture, society, and the self, Andre Perry’s essay collection Some of Us Are Very Hungry Now dissects uncomfortable truths and universalities... With his frank, empathetic tone and no-nonsense prose, Andre Perry is a fresh American voice that demands to be heard." ―Danielle Ballantyne, Foreword Reviews "Beautiful, brilliant, bold...Tantamount to a slice from the Americana songbook. These essays are ballads, images from the self, isolated and marginalized in other countries and in his own land. These are songs of identity and sexuality and expectations the world has of African American males from those perspectives. Here's hoping this book will mark the start of a long and varied journey for Perry. If the goal of a literary traveler is to show how connected we are to one another, his debut collection is an assured indication of deeper glories yet to come.” ―Christopher John Stephens, PopMatters "Perry’s debut collection of essays, Some of Us Are Very Hungry Now, charts a course into his past, offering a vision complete with imagined talk-show interviews, fragments of scripts and even multiple-choice questions." ―Drew Tewksbury, Los Angeles Times "Andre Perry’s debut collection of personal essays, Some of Us Are Very Hungry Now, unearths the complex dynamics of varying social, racial, class, and political privileges buried in every apartment party and barroom concert and late-night debate of his twenties... Perry seamlessly weaves throughout his personal stories lush culture criticism and commentary." ―Aram Mrjoian, Chicago Review of Books With luminous insight and fervent prose, Andre Perry s debut collection of personal essays, Some of Us Are Very Hungry Now , travels from Washington DC to Iowa City to Hong Kong in search of both individual and national identity. While displaying tenderness and a disarming honesty, Perry catalogs racial degradations committed on the campuses of elite universities and liberal bastions like San Francisco while coming of age in America. The essays in Some of Us Are Very Hungry Now take the form of personal reflection, multiple choice questions, screenplays, and imagined talk-show conversations, while traversing the daily minefields of childhood schoolyards and Midwestern dive-bars. The impression of Perry s personal journey is arresting and beguiling, while announcing the author s arrival as a formidable American voice. With luminous insight and fervent prose, Andre Perry’s debut collection of personal essays, Some of Us Are Very Hungry Now , travels from Washington DC to Iowa City to Hong Kong in search of both individual and national identity. While displaying tenderness and a disarming honesty, Perry catalogs racial degradations committed on the campuses of elite universities and liberal bastions like San Francisco while coming of age in America. The essays in Some of Us Are Very Hungry Now take the form of personal reflection, multiple choice questions, screenplays, and imagined talk-show conversations, while traversing the daily minefields of childhood schoolyards and Midwestern dive-bars. The impression of Perry’s personal journey is arrestin