How does it feel to have a book coming out in a month?

A fairly comprehensive census of my current emotions, some of them helpful, some of them less so

Top notes:

This essay is (at least in part) about my upcoming book. Don’t worry, there’ll be all sorts of links to that effect down at the bottom (including my first two events! Come through, Wisconsin!). But speaking of books, yesterday was publication day for two authors I really admire:

lyz

Lenz (my co-facilitator over at the Flyover Politics discord), whose incredible This American Ex-Wife has already changed lives and is only going to keep changing lives (while also knocking down an oppressive system or two), and

Ben Katt

a fellow White guy in Milwaukee trying to live a more thoughtful, connected existence, who has documented his journey in his tender-hearted, wise memoir, The Way Home.

Last week was the best week ever, or at least that’s what I heard. It was Valentine’s Day in first grade, a rare and transcendent marriage of expectation (my daughter anticipated returning home from school with a paper bag decorated with hearts and bursting with candy, toys and cards from her classmates) and reality (that’s exactly what happened). But also: she was line leader. On Valentine’s Day week. A suitably important job for a much anticipated holiday. And then, on Thursday, it was the first graders' turn to sing in the school assembly, which meant that she got to wear a shirt with her name on it (well technically it was Ida B. Wells’ name, but that’s one of the advantages of sharing a name with a historic figure) and tromp up onto the big stage with the colorful banner behind it and belt out a song that I believe was about a wolf while I clapped vigorously and offered goofy dad thumbs-up from the audience.

There were no special activities on Monday, and I could tell that Ida felt more out of sorts that day. Was it the frenetic buzz of anticipatory joy? The anxiety that something might go wrong, that the promised land might not be so verdant after all? I don’t know. But that was part of the narrative of the week as well: waiting, biding her time, sitting in the unknown. So too was the day after: the come down, when she had to go back to school and there were no more candy bags or chances to tromp up to the stage and belt out a wolf song. You can’t have a best week ever without all three stages.

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My book comes out on March 19th, which is less than a month from now. Best month ever, right? And that’s very much true, I remind myself in my more thoughtful, less anxious moments.

I mean, you all, what a gift I’ve received.

Not just the “getting to write a book” gift (though that itself is massive, a literal life-long dream), but that I got to write this book. A memoir. A story about Whiteness and White people’s relationship to each other, yes, but my version of that story, one grounded in my own regrets and missteps and lessons learned. And more than that, a story about my family: my grandparents, my parents, my siblings, my wife, my children. I got to write a love story to them.

Think about that: for the rest of my kids’ life, they will have a reminder of what their dad believed, how he came to believe it, and what loving them feels like through his eyes. And that’s already true. That book exists. Physical copies of it literally just arrived in my house. And nothing that’s about to happen— the mechanics of the release itself, varying degrees of success or failure, the entire world ignoring my book, me getting hit by a bus tomorrow— will change that. I’ve already received one of the most profound gifts of my life. Best month ever! Best year ever! Best authoring experience ever!

Some days I stay there, in that warm, grateful cocoon. Some days I recognize how rare it is, not to mention how mediated it is (like every gift I’ve received) by layers upon layers of privilege. I remember that, at its core, the book is about valuing relationships and community rather than self-aggrandizement and external validation. And I stop there. Because what better way to live that message than to sit for a beat in gratitude and then get back to work.

Other days, though, I wake up imagining any number of self-centered worst case scenarios— a mass backlash, my name permanently ungoogleable, the first ever author banned from writing another sentence. NONE OF US LIKED THE BOOK, they’ll tell me (“they” being every writer, reader, editor, and person on the planet, collectively), adding YOU OWE US FOR MAKING US READ YOUR BAD BOOK. In the scenario, I am stung by their renunciation but impressed by their coordination. At least they’re organizing, I tell myself. Maybe they got something out of the book after all.

I remind myself that the scenario is silly. Not because everybody is guaranteed to love the book, but because none of us weirdo human beings care that much about other people or the work we create in the world (either positively or negatively). We’re too busy fighting our own battles. I’ve both loved and hated a number of books in my day, but I don’t spend that much time thinking about the authors who created them, at least not at length. I’m too busy beating myself up for the last time the Amtrak gate agent told me “have a great train ride” and I replied “you too!”

I refresh my inbox to see if there’s any news from my book’s publicist. Has there been a review? Any new events booked? Has Brené Brown emerged from podcast retirement for an episode where she tells every White person to read my book? Some days, I hear some promising bits of news. And I’m be grateful for those gifts as well. Some days, though, I keep refreshing, hoping for the next gift. I don’t say that I’m dissatisfied with the pile already accumulating at my feet, but still. I must be refreshing for a reason.

To be fair to myself, there are practical reasons why I care. This is my job now, and it’s one hell of a great job, but one of its downsides is that there are no guarantee that it’ll continue indefinitely. If I want to keep writing professionally, the book does, in fact, have to sell copies. That’s a real thing. And that’s not all. I truly believe that the book can help folks (especially well-meaning White folks) in their efforts to make our corners of the world more just and loving. That doesn’t happen, though, if nobody reads it. And since I’m a first time author who isn’t a big celebrity name, and since my book isn’t quite what readers have learned to expect from a book about race (there is no big lecture or checklist or grand proclamation, instead there’s a request to do something odd— stick with a single White guy’s story, neither as an exemplar nor a cautionary tale, but because there’s something interesting to consider in how White people relate not just to Black and Brown people but to each other), the difference between the book finding its people and disappearing into the mist will likely take a lot of hustle.

Surely those reasons alone don’t explain it all, though.

Why is the first gift not enough?

I mean, there are a lot of answers. Is it our shared weirdo human brain chemistry? The hedonic treadmill? Evolutionary lessons over-learned from our ancestors’ days in the caves?

Or is it capitalism and White supremacy and patriarchy and all those systems of domination that tell us that life is about accomplishment and competition and not about how kind and loving we are to each other?

Or is it more personal than that… one more piece of evidence for my struggles with one of the book’s core refrains— a straight White man, having received all that the world has to offer, still demanding more and more external validation?

Yes, yes, and yes, probably.

I’ve heard the “publishing a book is like giving birth” metaphor a number of times in the last few months, both from people who’ve done both of those things as well as those who haven’t. Perhaps that’s right, but I’ll never be able to say for certain.

What I will say, though, is that publishing a book is like every single incredible blessing in our life, in that it is perfect and sacred and absolutely, already enough, but that doesn’t mean that your mind doesn’t trick you into believing that it isn’t.

Publishing this book is a gift, but so too would have been getting to write all these reflections down and only showing my parents, wife and kids. So too would have been telling a few of these stories to good friends over coffee or a beer. So too would have been hearing a dear friend’s own stories and learning so much from the ways that it was different from my own.

Publishing a book is a gift, just as the last great thing that happened to you was a gift. A great day at work. A laughter-filled conversation with you best friend. A milestone that once seemed lofty but that you successfully conquered. It’s a particularly ego-gratifying and self-doubt-triggering gift, to be clear, but still. They’re all holy exercises in seeing and being seen.

Publishing a book is like all those other gifts in that it is already perfect, but the fact of its intrinsic perfection won’t keep our minds from playing silly tricks on us. “But what if this good thing is about to go away?” “What if it’s a mirage?” What if what I really want is somebody else’s version of a good thing?”

My wife and I talk a lot about all the feelings related to the book, but to be honest we talk much more about her days at work. While I type away at a computer for a few hours before folding laundry and making dinner, she works with a big mess of glorious, complicated people. Every day. Which means a thousand joys and tragedies and egos and individual manifestations of broader power dynamics ramming into each other over and over again. There are so many stories she has to make sense of every day. Heroic stories. Awful stories. Incomplete stories. By contrast “I got to write this thing and I hope that people like it” is pretty simple.

All that said, here’s what I’m trying to have be true, a month from having my book be out in the world. If all these tidy little takeaways sound trite, that’s likely because we’re always re-learning the same small handful of lessons, just in a new accent.

I’m trying to remember that I’ve already received the gift.

I’m trying to remember that, years from now, I will likely not remember all of the minutiae of this pre-release month— how many events, how many interviews, perhaps even the general amount of sales. But I will remember if I didn’t appreciate this moment. And I’ll definitely remember if I wasn’t paying attention to my kids because I was checking my phone to see if I needed to attend to this or that bit of book-related business.

But more so, I’m trying to remember something that has nothing to do with my book or my reaction to it, namely how lucky I am to be surrounded by people I love and care for deeply, some of whom are receiving gifts right now, others of whom are struggling.

Hand to God, I hope you read the book. I hope lots of people read the book. I hope the invitation I make in the introduction (that my focusing on my personal story rather than a broad socio-historical census inspires a deeper conversation amongst other White people about all of our thirsty, flailing efforts to be “the right kind of White?”) comes true.

But even if none of those hopes come to fruition, I truly am already grateful for the gift I’ve received. Even if I have to remind myself to calm my mind. Even if I’m embarrassed by how frequently I need those reminders, about how hard I have to work to stay out of my own way.

What isn’t hard, though, are the moments that I stop thinking about myself and the book altogether and I think about you all— both the you alls I know and the you alls I don’t but that I’m sure are out there, having your own collection of joyous, tragic, silly and embarrassing moments. In my better moments, I stop refreshing and perseverating and start rooting for you and the gifts in your life— both that they’ll come your way, and that they too will feel like enough.

I hope we all have the best week ever, over and over again. Even more so, I hope we realize those best weeks when we’re living them— both on the quiet anticipatory Mondays, the cacophonous perfect middles, and the come-downs after the Valentines have all been taken home.

End notes

Hey, speaking of that book, you know, the one that has already been a gift but that I do hope can be a gift to others? Well, there are a bunch of ways that you can help out. Thank you to all who’ve already helped out. It means the world.

You can help The Right Kind of White (and me)…

• By pre-ordering it, of course!

• By pre-ordering the audio version of it!

• By filling out this little survey after pre-ordering so that I can send you a thank you gift!

• [For those of you who’ve already read it] by reviewing on Goodreads or (when it’s out) on Amazon [is it a good thing that both of these sites have so much algorithimical power over a book’s success? Probably not! But that’s where we are]!

• By requesting it from your local library!

• By coming to an event (more coming soon)!:

  • In Milwaukee! Friday, May 22nd, 6:30 PM at Boswell Books [Free but RSVP here].

  • In LaCrosse, WI! Thursday April 11th, 6:30 PM at Pearl Street Books.

• By filling out this survey [(if you’re part of an organization or group that would like to host a workshop with me (and do a book event as part of it)].

• By choosing the Right Kind of White for Oprah’s book club [note: I am learning this action is only applicable if you, personally, are Oprah Winfrey]!

• By sharing this newsletter with others and/or becoming a subscriber!

• By telling me about a gift that has recently come your way (just send me an email! I’d love to both celebrate and hear about whether it was hard to just recognize that gift).