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Essays
by Lawrence Burney
An essay collection from culture critic Lawrence Burney that is a personal and analytical look at his home city of Baltimore, music from throughout the global Black diaspora, and the traditions that raised him. For fans of Hanif Abdurraqib, Kiese Laymon, and Isaac Fitzgerald.
There are moments throughout our lives when we discover an artist, an album, a film, or a cultural artifact that leaves a lasting impression, helping inform how we understand the world, and ourselves, moving forward. In No Sense in Wishing, Lawrence Burney explores these profound interactions with incisive and energizing prose, offering us a personal and critical perspective on the people, places, music, and art that transformed him.
In a time when music is spearheading Black Americans' connection with Africans on The Continent, Burney takes trips to cover the bubbling creative scenes in Lagos and Johannesburg that inspire teary-eyed reflections of self and belonging. Seeing his mother perform as the opening act at a Gil Scott-Heron show as a child inspires an essay about parent-child relationships and how personal taste is often inherited. And a Maryland crab feast with family facilitates an assessment of how the Black people in his home state have historically improvised paths for their liberation.
Taking us on a journey from the streets of Baltimore to the concert halls of Lagos, No Sense in Wishing is a kaleidoscopic exploration of Burney's search for self. With its gutsy and uncompromising criticism alongside intimate personal storytelling, it's like an album that hits all the right notes, from a promising writer on the rise.
"Fluent, sometimes nerdy, and often funny observations about the power of art to add meaning to one's life." —Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
"Cutting and clarifying in equal measure, Burney's essays combine sharp cultural analysis with lucid self-examination, resulting in a lively collection that slots comfortably alongside the work of writers like Hanif Abdurraqib. Readers will be rapt." —Publisher's Weekly
"A frank and joyous celebration of Black art as well as a musical coming-of-age story." —Booklist
"No Sense In Wishing is a stunning, richly intimate tapestry of affections that, most importantly, does incredible work to pay close attention to the people, things, and places that might otherwise be looked over. Through this, and within these pages, dignity is afforded to an interior world—and how grateful readers should be for that." —Hanif Abdurraqib, New York Times bestselling author of There's Always This Year and A Little Devil in America
"No Sense In Wishing is among the most profound and dazzling debuts I've ever read. Lawrence Burney writes at once like a rusty-knuckled Southern gardener and a skilled Northern conjurer of the nth degree. The work here is provocative, yet firmly rooted in the exciting fringes of traditions yet to be named. No Sense in Wishing might actually do more for understanding how Baltimore, Maryland is, and what is actually happening in that beautifully black Northern Southern city. I'm absolutely shook at how good the book-making here is." —Kiese Laymon, bestselling author of Heavy: An American Memoir
This information about No Sense in Wishing was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Lawrence Burney is a writer, critic, and the founder of True Laurels, an independent magazine covering Baltimore's music and culture scene. His work has appeared in publications such as New York magazine, GQ, and Pitchfork. He has also worked at The Fader, VICE, and The Baltimore Banner. No Sense in Wishing is his first book.
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