I don’t write reviews. I just can’t; I lack the ability. The ingredients for composing a good review include access to and the selective application of a review lexicon – a common language or vocabulary used by reviewers and understood by those who typically read reviews. It’s a bit like a wine connoisseur choosing to describe wines in terms of “notes”. It also requires not only a fairly broad knowledge of literature, but an understanding of the basic structure of a review, and some ability to defend your opinion. Let’s be honest among friends: I can barely keep up with this blog, much less something more lofty. Maybe it’s my lack of the needed breadth/depth of knowledge, my debate skills being those of a petulant toddler denied their favorite toy, or it could just be that I’m lazy. Regardless, I prefer my reviews limited to distributing stars, or if I’m feeling extra lazy, a simple binary choice – thumbs up or down. To put it another way – rather “to raspberry or not to raspberry” someone’s creative baby – that is the question (gah, curse my brain, I find I’m now doing the entire quote from Hamlet while working in the word “raspberry” as much as possible – see, this right here, is another reason I can’t write reviews and why you don’t want me to write them – I’ll “squirrel,” insert asides and non-sequitor to the point that you forget why you’re even reading my post. For example, now, you’re here for a review.

But before I drop it completely, please allow me this one indulgence… tis nobler in the mind to raspberry… Ok, I’m letting it go.

A Recommendation

A few months ago Dad asked if I was familiar with the author Tyler Merritt. He’d recently heard an interview with the author on NPR where he discussed his book, I Take My Coffee Black: Reflections on Tupac, Musical Theater, Faith, and Being Black in America. Now my Dad isn’t one to typically go around recommending books. Ok, that’s not entirely true. In high school, he’d recommended A Tale of Two Cities, Dune, and everything written by Kurt Vonnegut, which I read and enjoyed. (Well, more “enjoyed-ish” “enjoyed-lite” or “grimaced through” when it came to Dickens. It’s a solid story BUT it could stand to be edited for pacing. Hey, by the time I was a teen, attention spans were on a rapid decline, and paid-by-the-installment Dickens novels were grueling. Sir, imma need you to wrap this tale up, because your narrative(s) plod along. This run-on sentence is truly the worst of times, and that Defarge woman with all that knitting… ooft!

My apologies to the Dickens fans. Great stories, but… (For the record, don’t get me started on the turtle chapters in Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath.)

Anyway, all of that to say that it’s been a day or two since Dad sent a recommendation my way. So when he recommended Mr. Merritt’s book, I snapped it up … and promptly put it on my counter where it joined a to-be-read pile that will one day consume my house.

Still, I decided to cheat a bit and just go out and find the NPR interview online. I wanted to check that box off the next time I spoke to Dad and prove I was a good daughter who sometimes paid attention. I landed on the author’s website The Tyler Merritt Project. I looked around hoping to get a feel for who he was and what had drawn Dad to him. On his site were links to several of his videos including episodes of I Take My Coffee Black. I listened. I watched. And then I immediately purchased the audiobook, which is narrated by the author so I could hear him tell his story.

You can go to the site or YouTube and watch those, but I actually want to share the one that went viral before he wrote his book. Below is “Before You Call the Cops”

The book is autobiographical, and the author shares engaging stories that are very open about his experiences and who he is as a person – owning his many impressive accomplishments as well as some of his failings. The result makes him relatable and very human. He creates proximity to him – one of the major tenets of Tyler Merritt’s philosophy – that through proximity you create empathy. This idea, nay truth, that when we are exposed to others – we get a better understanding of their perspectives and can then more fully appreciate their struggles. In fact, in one of the chapters, he talks about his “Safe Place” experiment where he brought together “…individuals from varying political, racial, ethnic, and religious backgrounds to participate in face-to-face discussions about hot-button topics to encourage healthy and safe – and sometimes even humorous – dialogue. By stepping out from behind the safety and anonymity of computer screens and social media, Merritt shares ways for individuals to engage more productively, no matter the issue at hand.” ¹ (The bio said it better than I ever could, and I did try.) The conversations were at times quite raw, but the participants walked away with a better understanding of each other.

I’m going to stop here, because as I said at the beginning, I don’t write reviews, it’s not in my wheelhouse, but I can make recommendations. And I highly recommend you read this book, because I truly believe we’d all be better people if we knew Tyler Merritt.

Quick plug for the audiobook: At the end of the book, Tyler Merritt has this wonderful conversation with his best friend, Tony Award Winner, James Inglehart. I sincerely want them to host a regular something – podcast, YouTube channel, TV/radio show, anything. Together they are so fun and just brought me joy.

1. Quote from The Hachette Speakers Bureau’s bio of Tyler Merritt’s. You can book him to speak at an engagement or host one of his interactive Safe Place talks. ↩︎