The Dead Don't Need Reminding

This brilliant, adult nonfiction debut from the acclaimed MG author and poet weaves two wrenching personal narratives of recovery and reclamation, spliced with a dazzle of pop-culture

The Dead Don’t Need Reminding is a braided story of Julian Randall’s return from a near-suicidal depression, and his determination to retrace his great-grandfather’s history to the Mississippi town where he had the audacity to pass and from which he was driven out amid threats of being tarred and feathered.

​Both journeys through and to identity are almost unbearable—yet each is sustained by the joyful exuberance of Randall’s favorite songs, movies, TV shows, and sporting moments that play in his head as he takes on the challenge. Spiderman reminds him of his powers; Kanye’s tribute to Donda becomes a riff on parents and children; watching Devin Hester’s kick-off return with his dad shows his father’s fire within, usually so carefully controlled; and in the One Day at a Time reboot, Julian finds representation of the out, queer, Latinx teen that he never had growing up. Adonis Creed, and Rocky, are a funny and poignant reflection on mortality. Everything is about race and America’s unrelenting violence on Black people.

The book is a kaleidoscope of voices, feelings and insights into the pressure and pain of oppression, that culminates in a triumph; Julian Randall gets his ghost story back.