Things I Have Withheld

by Kei Miller

By acclaimed Forward Prize winner, novelist, and poet, Kei Miller's linked collection of essays blends memoir and literary commentary to explore the silences that exist in our conversations about race, sex, and gender. In a deeply moving, critical and lyrical collection of interconnected essays, award-winning writer Kei Miller explores the silences in which so many important things are kept. Miller examines the experience of discrimination through this silence and what it means to breach it — "to risk words, to risk truth; and through the body and the histories those bodies inherit" the crimes that haunt them, and how the meanings of our bodies can shift as we move through the world, variously assuming privilege or victimhood. Through letters to James Baldwin, encounters with Soca, Carnival, family secrets, love affairs, questions of aesthetics and more, Miller powerfully and imaginatively recounts everyday acts of racism and prejudice from a black, male, queer perspective. An almost disarmingly personal collection, Kei dissects his experiences in Jamaica and Britain, working as an artist and intellectual, making friends and lovers, discovering the possibilities of music and dance, literary criticism, culture, and storytelling. With both the epigrammatic concision and conversational cadence of his poetry and novels, Things I Have Withheld is a great artistic a work of innovation and beauty which challenges us to interrogate what seems unsayable and why, "our actions, defense mechanisms, imaginations and interactions" and those of the world around us.

Genres: Nonfiction, Essays, Memoir, Poetry, Race, Queer, LGBT

224 pages, Hardcover

First published May 6, 2021

About the author

Kei Miller was born in Jamaica in 1978. He completed an MA in Creative Writing at Manchester Metropolitan University and a PhD in English literature at the University of Glasgow. He works in multiple genres - poetry, fiction and non-fiction and has won major prizes across these genres. He won the Forward Prize for poetry and the OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature. He has taught at the Universities of Glasgow, London, and Exeter. He is presently Professor of English at the University of Miami.

Reviews

[BookOfCinz · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is what I call a brilliant collection of essays! This be read and studied widely! Brilliant!

In Kei Miller’s long-awaited collection of essays Things I Have Withheld , he exams in the author note, silence, his body and how it is viewed by others. This is examination is continued throughout the collection. The title of the book Miller notes, was taken from poet, Dionne Brand. In each the essays he says, is an act of faith, an attempt to put my trust in words again. My attempt to offer, at long last, a clearer vocabulary to the things I have only ever mumbled…

In the thirteen essays included in this collection, Kei Miller examines his body and how it is viewed by others. He writes about being a Black Man, Writer, Gay Man, from the Caribbean and what is expected of him. How others view him and the racism he continually faces. He examine racism and classism in Jamaica by citing examples of things that happened recently- Usain Bolt being told to “go back where he comes from” #NeverForget . We read his open letters to James Baldwin and the impact he had on him. Family secrets and things you don’t talk about, love affairs and trauma. Being a gay man in Jamaica, how the writer’s white tears continue to be something he cannot shake and carnival in Trinidad- the “different type of energy”. We go on his visit to the African continent - we get mugged, visit a Rastafarian village and go to the launch of Accra Noir. So much is packed into this collection, this is a collection that is crisp, biting and intelligent. What a ride!

I particularly loved the essays Mr. Brown, Mrs. White & Ms. Black, The Boys At the Harbour, Our Worst Behavior, The Buck, The Bacchanal, And Again, The Body . After finishing The Boys At the Harbour, I was moved to tears. I literally could not breathe reading what their life is like. Miller was able to give a realistic look into he lives of these boys, what they dreams are (yes, they have dreams) and how fluid their lives can be. I was transported to the Kingston Harbour, hearing the waves crash while I reasoned with them. WOW. What I loved was how Miller handled their stories with care, this essay was truly masterful.

Jamaica wasn’t big, but there were so many different Jamaicas, that it was possible to live in the worlds that really had never intersected.

Miller’s writing is perfection. His brain is brilliant. The topics he covered was done in such an insightful way. This is a must read collection of essays that I cannot stop thinking about.

[Lisa (NY) · Rating 4 out of 5]

A powerful and imaginative collection of essays exploring race, gender, classism - probing what divides us and brings us together, the risks in speaking out and in remaining silent.

[2TReads · Rating 5 out of 5]

"We write because there are always things we have withheld. We die because things have been withheld from us, which is to say, respect; which is to say, dignity; which is to say, love." -from the essay This Is How We Die

What will it take for the uncomfortable questions to be asked, for the true, raw answers to be given; that'll make the ones who asked and the ones who answered to really sit with all that question and answer truly means?

What will honesty cost us? Should it cost us? How will we move forward with each other after feeling as if a question, an answer, rubbed us raw and jangled our nerves; flipping the world upside down.

With this collection of essays, Miller is not only revealing parts of himself, making his vulnerabilities known, he is also exploring the many ways in which we hide ourselves to shield ourselves. Because when have we ever been truly free to express our pain and anger, our disappointments and expectations without the carefully constructed fount of racial stratification reminding us of lines we dare not forget are there.

The complexities that make our families, communities, and countries all impact us daily; rewarding and breaking down in equal measures, but always there is a call to act, whether in service to ourselves or others.

The body forms the central focus of these essays. The ways in which bodies propel/suppress conversations and reactions, how they can be bound or free, used/discarded, celebrated/denounced, stories told and hidden, power given/taken; how when we are attuned, all the small truths can be seen.

This is the time to be brave, weak, to speak without fear, to face what makes us uncomfortable, to voice our pain and hesitancy, to trace the maps that are our bodies so that we can truly come to know them. Because in knowing, we are freed.

[Mid-Continent Public Library]

Miller is a native Jamaican, novelist, and poet. The essays in his collection center around the topic of the things we don't say--the secrets we keep in our families, the words we don't speak for our safety or comfort, and the things we may not even admit to ourselves. Subjects range from the experiences of gay youth in Jamaica, Carnival, and a devestating final letter to James Baldwin that recounts the final moments of recent Black victims (Floyd, Arbery, Taylor). *Reviewed by Angie from IRS*

[Never Without a Book]

Kei did not disappoint.

[Nicole C. · Rating 4 out of 5]

2025 review: reread as our inaugural selection for the DEI bookclub I started at work. My review is the same - powerful.


2024 review: This is my first encounter with Kei Miller, but hopefully not the last, as even though this is not a book of his poems, it certainly has a lyrical quality. This is a book of essays, but don't let that throw you - this is not a scholarly academic tome. This is an eminently readable series of thoughts and experiences on Black identity, racism, otherness, and queerness.

I am formulating a DEI bookclub at work, and I think this is a contender for our inaugural book. There is a lot to discuss here and it's very accessible, as well as intersectional.

I will be reading this again.

[IslandGirl Reads · Rating 5 out of 5]

“All that a family is, is the shape of its silence” - The Old Woman Who Sat In The Corner (my favorite essay).

In this collection of essays, Miller peels back the layers of the onion to take a candid look at racism, classism, colorism and basically moving through the world in a black body!

The writing is brilliant and authentic and I must’ve stopped 50x to make note of a phrase or word that I connected with. This book felt like a conversation that continued way into the night over a glass of wine and quite possibly a cigar!

Well done yaadie! Well done 👏🏾 👏🏾 👏🏾

[Nadine in California · Rating 5 out of 5]

I almost hesitate to call these essays since each is as captivating, imaginative and powerful as the best of stories. If at all possible, experience the audio - the author reads his work with a wonderfully melodious, rhythmic voice that is in no way the awful, portentous 'poet voice' that drives me nuts. The only other book of his I've read is Augustown which so thrilled me that I turned to this one right away, thanks to the recommendation of my GR friend, Beverly. I'm glad to see Miller has a backlist of novels and poetry, and that he narrates several of them. I'll read every one.

[Shayne Brown · Rating 5 out of 5]

So this goes straight on to the favourites shelf. I have to be honest this type of literature is not usually for me - I tend to find myself steering well clear of a writer who publishes a collection of essays, short stories and the like. More often than not, I find that this type of work will usually end in verbose prose where I find myself having to re-read sentences, paragraphs and chapters to try and decipher the message. As much as I love some of Baldwin's works (and the author I believe to be a keen fan given his letters to James in the opening and concluding chapters) The Fire Next Time, for example, is one of Baldwin's works which I feel falls victim to this. That wasn't the case with Things I Have Withheld, Miller embarks on a series of personal accounts, or things he has withheld, with charisma, perspective, decision and simplicity. It is the diversity of his messages from spirituality, classism, colourism, personal autonomy, police brutality to Afrocentrism which really add to his appeal as a writer. Each story is different and each message and school of thought even more so.

It is the uniqueness of the author's thoughts and his ability to put them so lucidly and vividly in to writing which make this book one of my favourites. Whether the author is drawing attention to colourism in Jamaica or spotlighting the influence of colonialism on black relationships in Africa or highlighting the plights of young, homeless LGBTQ+ youth in Jamaica, this work does so much, in so few words and, most meaningfully, does so extremely powerfully.

underline text: Nothing less than severely thought-provoking on so many levels.

[Karen A. Lloyd · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the best collection of essays I've ever read... And to be the dedicatee of such a powerful body of work is extra special and emotional for me.

Using the body as locus, it reflects critically on issues fundamental to our existence in the world as we know it; including race & class & sex & sexuality... And the attendant problems.

Kei has already proven himself to be one of the most important contemporary writers across all genres in the Caribbean, and this is an addition to his already canonical oeuvre.

[Musings on Living · Rating 4 out of 5]

Favourite Essays:
4. The Crimes That Haunt the Body
9. There Are Truths Hidden in Our Bodies
14. And This is How We Die

This book is sooo layered, I'm going to need to reread it just to fully appreciate the depth and complexity of each essay.

Kei reading the audiobook was pure perfection!!!

4.25⭐

[Karen_RunwrightReads · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a stunning collection of reflections from a profound thinker.
In these essays, the reader accompanies Kei Miller, a Black Jamaican man who lives and teaches in the UK, on his travels back to Jamaica, to Trinidad, Nairobi, Ethiopia and Kenya and experience with him attempted robbery, pilgrimage to historic sites, bacchanal and carnival but more so, the thoughts that propel his movement through the world as he listens keenly to what is said - how people regard him and reveal their thoughts and expectations about him.
There are places where Miller writes philosophically about incidents that happened and it made me want to do some research to see what was written about it in the news. There were places where he described a landscape or dynamics in his family and I chuckled but also wondered whether we are related, how familiar his descriptions.
Miller deeply describes the universality of experiences in the imaginings of racial violence he pens in letters to James Baldwin at the beginning and end of this book. They are sad letters, not simply because Miller highlights the randomization of brutality but also illustrates how there are some things even the writer cannot express... Things I Have Withheld
I highly recommend this book, but not for the faint of heart.

[Areeb Ahmad (Bankrupt_Bookworm) · Rating 5 out of 5]

"I listen to this man fumbling with his words, each one more careless than the last, each one digging a deeper hole. But I do not have better words to offer him and am suddenly overcome by the sadness of this - that our feelings are always so much bigger and more complex than language. Most days we cannot find the words to say precisely the things we would like to say."

Miller writes, "It is always the body I return to – our bodies and their various meanings," in an essay. Elsewhere: "... the moments when I am most in need of words are exactly the moments when I lose faith in them, and when I fall back into silence." Hence, "Each of these essays is an act of faith, an attempt to put my trust in words again." Dionne Brand is
mentioned as influence and the source of the title: "... there are some things that I will say to you and some things that I won't. And quite possibly the most important things will be the ones that I withhold." This is writing that confronts the white space, speaks out of a long-held silence, opens wide.

I cannot help but compare this one to Miller's first essay collection which I read in August and and loved quite a lot. The difference is of kind as well as degree. This one is more intimate and personal, a baring of the self and all the things kept inside for too long, all the words left unsaid. Its a really sincere confessional but, unlike a priest, the reader has no duty to absolve for there are no sins to wash away. It's just uncomfortable truths, a raw honesty, that forces one to sit still, listen, and ponder their implications long afterwards. The body, its weaknesses, hurts, vulnerabilities, is central.

I'm loathe to single out faves: all of them are magnificent. Standouts pieces were the epistolary essays: two to James Baldwin, and the third to Binyavanga Wainaina. "The Old Black Woman Sho Sat in the Corner", about family secrets and the stories we don't tell. " Mr. Brown, Mrs White, and Ms Black", about colourism and racism in Jamaica framed. "The White Women and the Language of Bees", about four known Caribbean white women writers but it's also about belonging, voice, appropriation. This collection cements my admiration for Miller even more. Absolutely extraordinary.

[Nicolette · Rating 5 out of 5]

Years ago I remember having a conversation with a friend discussing the idea that “no response is also a response”. In this collection - that I can only describe as epic - Kei Miller captures the essence of the silence. The comments we want to say but we don’t. The truths that are too heavy for the tongue, the truths that tug on our hearts.

I travelled through all these stories. I felt the situations as if they’ve happened to me - because in a way all of us who have ancestors from Africa have had these experiences in one form or another.

Protect Kei Miller at all costs. This collection is so well done, you should read it.

[Phyllis | Mocha Drop · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a wonderful collection of introspective and retrospective essays. I applaud the author’s courage to delve into some soul-bearing, heart-wrenching experiences and encounters that have shaped his views on humanity, his family, his heritage, and himself. Being a “racialized” Black male author who is also a member of the LGBTQIA community, many of his reflections address systemic racism (and the effect it has on his mental and physical health), homophobia, overt classism, sexism, and abject poverty.

Rarely does each story in such a varied collection resonated with me - but this compilation was layered and multi-faceted. My favorites were The Old Woman Who Sat In the Corner that revealed intimate family secrets, Mr. Brown, Mrs. White, and Ms. Black honed in on Jamaican classism, and my heartfelt for My Brother, My Brother.

Well Done! Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the opportunity to review such a moving
experience!

[Q · Rating 5 out of 5]

Outstanding!


“We write because there are always things we have withheld. We die because things have been withheld from us, which is to say, respect; which is to say, dignity; which is to say, love.”

[Jeanne · Rating 5 out of 5]

"I know how to tell stories, but how does one begin to tell silence?" (p. 51).

I read an essay in The Chronicle of Higher Education today, critiquing how race is talked about in universities (Patel, 2024). Eboo Patel hoped that race could become a source of pride rather than a status of victimization, that we could see all iterations of diversity and recognize those differences as strengths. Further, he hoped that we could bring diverse people around a common table to learn from and cooperate with one another.

I think getting to these "productive" conversations is often more difficult than we expect, in part, because in the 21st c. US, the loudest voices are often those that exclude or denigrate Blacks and other marginalized groups. One VP candidate in this election said about his wife, "Obviously she's not a white person… but I love Usha, she's such a good mom." But? Maybe he misspoke, but I hope he meant "and." And, before we can sit and sing "Kumbaya," we must feel that all parts of ourselves are heard.

As Kei Miller argued in "Mr. Brown, Mrs. White, and Ms. Black," Black, Brown, and white people feel that they need to be silent about some things. It would be scary or dangerous to put everything we think and feel into words – why I would not be an early adopter of a telepathy app. "We keep things to ourselves. We withhold them because of fear—because those things that we need to say, or acknowledge, or confess, or our own failings that we need to own up to—they can feel so important, it is hard to trust them to something so unsafe as words" (p. 11).

So, Miller gives voice to the ways that whites (and Browns and Blacks) are racist and the ways we talk or fail to talk about these things. Mrs. White "found she could only ever be intimate with a man who was able to see beyond her colour and race—a man who could see her simply as a person. The truth is, it usually took a white man to do that [in Jamaica]" (p. 34). Or, Ms. Black, who is called "a disgrace, an embarrassment, an intellectual lightweight. Black by name, but dark by nature. It is not that Ms Black does not understand things, and their complexity, but it is not always easy for her to attach the right words to that complexity. She has to take such care and such effort with her words and sometimes that makes her thoughts seem jumbled" – a difficulty that disappears when she talks with her mother in patois (pp. 43-44).

Miller talks about color and secrets in families, discovering only as an adult that the woman he'd thought was his cousin's grandmother was not. About the ways that lovers used their "whiteness against me as a weapon. I knew that what he said was true—that any story he chose to tell would be believed. It would be believed because of our different bodies, and the different meanings that our bodies produce" (p. 68). Whose story gets believed? Why? Why were some white friends surprised that there are dogs and poets in Jamaica? Why, when poor, gay boys living on the harbor reciprocated attacks, were they dangerous, squatters, prostitutes, thieves, murderers, beating up innocent people, the worst of the worst? "The offence they caused was in their own bodies. It was the way they walked in their bodies, and the way they danced in their bodies. And also, it was because they were poor" (pp. 112-113).

Miller described the way that whites and Blacks responded to an essay that was both generous and racist.

The white woman says: But I was being attacked! The critics came for me with sharp knives. And when one of us is attacked, all of us are attacked!

The other white woman says: Nah! When you is attacked it mean that you is attacked. It mean you have to ask yourself, what have I done? And you gots to put on your big girl pants and your big girl shoes, and you parse out what is truth from what is fuckery and you deal with it. (p. 131)

I'm working on putting on my big girl pants and my big girl shoes and parsing out truth from fuckery. Not easy, but I am trying. Things I Have Withheld, of which I have only offered a glimpse, is an important part of this journey.

[Kenzie | kenzienoelle.reads]

Quick thoughts! What a phenomenal collection of essays!! In particular "Mr. Brown, Mrs. White and Ms. Black" was so fantastic. So interesting as we see the world through the eyes of the author from Jamaica but traveling to the US,
England and beyond.

If you enjoy the nonfiction writing of Ta-Nehisi Coates and/or Kiese Laymon, definitely check this one out!!

[Tyger · Rating 5 out of 5]

would reccomend everyone to read. absolutely gorgeous writing, rly felt things very viscerally

[Laura Hoffman Brauman · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Maybe all that a family is, is the stories we do not tell. Maybe all that a family is, is the shape of it's silence. For there in that silence lies all the family's shame, and all of its values, and all of its most desperate longings. Often, in the vault of a family's untold stories are its most important things."

Sometimes you come across a work from a writer that feels like a gift - this is one of those times. Miller has crafted a collection that feels both intensely personal while still feeling like an examination of society and culture. One of the key themes within this collection is that there is no one way to be anything - race, gender, sexuality, nationality. While exploring the ways we experience and perceive things differently, he still pulls in threads of humanity that connect us (and sometimes frustrate and anger us.) Throughout the collection, Miller comes back to the idea of what we think we know, what we know we don't share, and why we hold those things back. It is done with such a profound skill that in each moment, I felt the ache of the choice to speak a truth or protect a silence.

I had only read some of Miller's novels prior to picking up this collection and wasn't sure if his essays would deliver the same punch - they absolutely did. If novels are lies that tell a truth, then these essays are Truths that tell a story.

One more quote "But the big, terrible things distract us from the other things, which are both smaller and more urgent, and prevent us from loving or trusting each other. I think about why I write essays -- as an antidote to distance, as a cure to what stretches between my best self and my worst self, or between my friends, however close we are -- the people I laugh with, the aunts who I kiss, the men I have kissed, the people I love, the people who want to be good people, who try every day to be good people, to do good things, but how so often between us, between our love is this black and white world, these truths that, by and large, I do not say, and by God, we do not want to hear."

[ToniJ · Rating 5 out of 5]

Superb!

Every essay was a masterpiece! Kei Miller's words transported me emotionally. I felt a connection to each word. This belongs in the Ja classroom. If I read things like this for Literature classes, maybe I would've started writing sooner.

[Nailya · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sometimes I come across a book and I just want to recommend it to everyone, without going into details. #thingsihavewithheld is such a book.

#KeiMiller, Jamaican novelist and poet, writes deeply personal essays about various aspects of identity, the body, race, gender and sexuality, all subjects I both work on academically and live through my entire life. This book really surprised me and made me think of issues, angles, and ideas I've never thought of before.

Miller is such a thoughtful and wise writer, writing with warmth and kindness on very difficult subjects, be it uprooted Jamaican queerness or travelling through Africa as a Black Caribbean man. The essays are united by the theme of withholding. Each of them contains words he wanted to say, but for various reasons, didn't. I found something comforting in this sense of speaking up, bringing forward, knowing someone's privy thoughts on the unspoken. He comes to this theme so often, repeating that what he wanted to say wasn't something you say 'over tea'. I am grateful to Miller for sharing these thoughts.

All the essays are written in what I'd call 'creative non-fiction' style. This is not accessible academic analysis or reporting. The essays are diverse and imaginative, ranging from letters to dead Black writers to almost short story style vignettes on the lives of particular archetypal people in Jamaica.

The poet in Miller is always coming forward. The writing is so lyrical.

Although every single essay in this collection is worth reading, I was particularly taken by the essay on White Caribbean female writers, the discussion of racism and colourism in Jamaica and the stylistically diverse accounts of Miller's travels in Kenya, Ethiopia and Ghana. I didn't want this book to end.

[O · Rating 5 out of 5]

Not a review, just thoughts.

It's remarkable reading about these situations and how the places and faces are different, but the feelings are so familiar.

Sometimes the situations are familiar, or the thoughts running through the mind are completely the same, as though the writer has outlined these essays for me especially to understand this world I live in, (unlikely ofc).

It's so interesting that we go through similar feelings in different ways, and in these essays you learn a little bit that it's not just you, it's the world.

A wisdom tooth extraction read.

[Philomena · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely loved this book! It was hard to read at times but only because Kei Miller’s words so aptly described what it means to be a black person in this world and especially in the West.

A profound collection of essays that should be mandatory reading for everyone regardless of their race. Maybe, just maybe, that’s how the constant injustice against black people and people of colour would end.

[Jan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Powerful personal essays from the author of Augustown, beautifully read by Miller himself.

[Damali · Rating 5 out of 5]

"We write because there are always things we have withheld. We die because things have been withheld from us, which is to say, respect; which is to say, dignity; which is to say, love."

I really think the hardest book to write must be essay collections. I hate explaining my own thoughts (very ironic considering this entire page HA), so I truly can’t imagine taking the time to reflect on your experiences to a level that is distinct yet relatable, profound and yet still accessible. But somehow, I think Kei Miller did just that.

In Things I Have Withheld, Miller takes the difficult and brave step to “put his trust into words again” and write about the things fear tells us we should keep to ourselves. He often points to the inadequacy of words in describing the core parts of ourselves, but also shines a light on how much more powerful it is to renounce our silence, at the risk of words failing us anyway, in order to gain the freedom that truth brings. The central theme of his essays is tied to the body –it’s perception, it’s untold stories, it’s various meanings in different contexts, and the histories that haunt them. With his experience as a black, Jamaican, queer man living across the UK and the Caribbean, Miller is able to explore a range of topics such as Carnival, the African diaspora, white Caribbean authors, and police corruption. I think what makes this book special is Miller’s vibrant writing that keeps you fully engrossed in every essay, and how exceptional his ideas are. Every concept that I thought I had a decently complex understanding of (i.e. gender, race, etc.), he found the words to add a new perspective or question I had never considered. And with topics I had never thought about (white Caribbean authors, translating queerness in different cultures), his words were eye-opening.

I actually liked virtually every essay, but some of my favorites were: The Old Black Woman Who Sat In The Corner (family bonds, secrecy), Mr. Brown, Mrs. White and Ms. Black (classism/racism in Jamaica), The Boys at the Harbor (sexuality, found families, homophobia), and There Are Truths Hidden In Our Bodies (race, gender, sexuality). I highly recommend this book with a truly global worldview.

4.5 stars

[Rendezvouswithbooks · Rating 5 out of 5]

रस निष्पत्ति - करुण😪, वीभत्स😖 (in readers)
भाव निर्मिति - शोक😔, भय 😨( in characters)

A discussion with a friend took a curious turn when we wondered that so many books are written each year about Racism, Sexism, Homophobia, Wars. Is the sole purpose of these Authors to earn brownie points from Award Jury

Then again it is so much easier for Privileged lot of us to say this. Privileged by our caste, color, sexuality

To think of it, instead of writing about the fantasies filled with happily ever after, why would these authors narrate stories of oppression

'Coz despite the endless number of content on such things the atrocities never end

"The child is not an abuser, but the father is, because his body is different– and I think about these things every day when a man says, ‘But why is that sexist? A woman would do it too!’....And I say it is because of our bodies; it is because there are histories that haunt our bodies."

This essay collection is another milestone book into bringing our attention to how this world functions. Miller shares his experiences of victimization of being Jamaican, Black & queer

He compares that as difficult it is to survive for a person of color, for queers in America, it is equally difficult for a white man & queers to survive in Jamaica. He talks about this World where there is space for all, but people want to decide whom to give that space to live & breathe

Author's writing is introspective, reflective & equally compelling. He is Seeker for stories. Stories that are part of each one of our families. Stories that are more in the hidden( silent) parts then the parts that are told. He makes you think about the kind of world you want to be part of

"I leave a space in this essay for the silence I have been trying to write about– that silence in which so many things that should be said are never said."

The way Miller puts words to describe the final moments of Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor & George Floyd in his last essay is heartbreaking

Read it to make yourself a better human being

[Eric · Rating 5 out of 5]

Superb! I've read Kei Miller's prose, his poetry, and now his essays. I come away from reading these essays more impressed than ever. I love that all of these essays spoke truth regarding race, masculinity, queerness, and identity. For Miller, all of those intersect. They work all together as he has navigated this world. I love that he book-ended the work with letters to James Baldwin. I can never get enough of Baldwin!! Though he doesn't spell it out, it's appropriate that he began and ended with Baldwin. Surely, Baldwin would understand how difficult it is to live as a Black Queer Man on two continents. Finally, this book is a great complement to Ta-Nehisi Coates' Between the World and Me in that both writers write explicitly about the Black Body as the theater of racial tension. Unlike Coates, Miller writes from his life as a Queer Black man. This adds nuance, but it adds clarity that Blackness is the common experience; it is Blackness that is the threat. And being a Black Man in the West is a more acute experience in this world. The writing is penetrating and excellent. I will return to this book over and over.

Re-reading my review after my second reading in preparation to teach this book soon. Nothing to add to my original review.

[Adanis · Rating 5 out of 5]

What an absolutely brilliant masterpiece from Kei Miller!

Things I Have Withheld speaks of the silence about things that matter; white privilege, police brutality, racism, queerness, the experience in the black body, culture and the plethora of other topics, often due to wanting to be palpable in the societies to which we belong. But what we don’t realize, that is, to not talk about it only allows these things to fester and continuously grow. Kei is stating that to turn a blind eye is somewhat giving consent, and this book made me stop and think about all the things I have indeed withheld!

The collection was mentally stimulating, witty, cultural and truly a display of beautiful writing. There were some standouts in this collection for me:

Mr Brown, Mrs White and Ms Black
The Old Black Woman Who Sat in the Corner
The Boys at the Harbour
Letters to James Baldwin
And This is How We Die

This is a collection I will be forcing all my people to read.

[Sandeep · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the third consecutive collection of essays that I have read over the past couple of months and this one by Kei Miller has to be one of the most personal ones.

His style of writing makes this whole collection seem like fiction - which he assures us that it is not. The essays delve deep into his, and at times our collective psyches to examine the harsh realities of ourselves that we keep at bay.

Secrets rarely spoken or said in hushed tones are discussed with honesty and often with a lyrical quality that is truly astounding.Miller recounts everyday acts of racism and prejudice from a black, male, queer perspective.

One of the questions Miller asks has been stuck in my head: 'How does one unlearn privilege, especially the kind that is given to you daily and without question, so it does not seem like privilege at all but simply the everyday-ness of life?'

An insightful read.