Above all, A Lucky Man captures universal emotions so that all readers can empathize with the specific trials experienced by these 'lucky men. “I realize now how strange it is to exist otherwise, especially in a big city, and I marvel at people rushing, rushing, rushing, headlong into things, how full of trust they are, how they can't see what often lurks behind the floating vapor of a smile.”īrinkley’s stories read as portraits, which not only show the effects of masculinity, abuse, and poverty in the black community but also capture the solitude and what it is to come of age here.

Some take capoeira classes with a sibling, delete questionable pictures off their phone, have sex with an old flame in a Catholic church, or enter into a relationship with a deceased friend's partner and child. In both functional and dysfunctional ways, each protagonist tries to find a way to reconcile themselves to their new reality. An imaginative young boy from the Bronx goes swimming with his day camp group at a backyard pool in the suburbs, and faces the effects of power and privilege in. That gap might be the true measure of one's loneliness.” Each story reflects the anger and pain wrought from losing someone or something invaluable to one’s identity-the loss of innocence and trust in a stepfather, the decline of a marriage, the vanished popularity and validation in high school, and the death of a best friend. Jamel Brinkley, with incisive and nuanced prose, explores the charged, complex ties between men whose mistakes threaten their relationships with friends, lovers, and family members. He writes, “For most people there is a gap, for some a chasm, between the way they dream themselves and the way they are seen by others.

Jamel Brinkley's short-story collection, A Lucky Man, delves into the lives of black boys and men through the NYC landscape of sex, isolation, and familial growing pains.

A Lucky Man by Jamel Brinkley