Essay Collection Review: They Can’t Kill Us Until They Kill Us

Summary: Not quite as perfect as the author’s later essay collections, but still an incredible medley of pop culture analysis, memoir, and existential questions.

This is Hanif Abdurraqib’s first essay collection, although it’s the last of three that I’ve read. As with the previous collection, the writing is good enough that I lack the skill necessary to identify all the mechanics of why it’s so good. There are a few elements common to all three of Abdurraqib’s essay collections that I recognize and love. Most obviously, while he writes about music and pop culture, he uses these subjects as windows into more existential questions. His essays are usually about music, but also contain elements of memoir and tackle big topics like racism in the US, grief, death, Black masculinity, and family. The essays typically begin by talking about the music, but these parts aren’t just the doorway to the rest. The analysis of the music is insightful, making it possible for me to see music I know in new ways or making me feel that I understand music I’ve never heard.

The structure of these essays is impressive, as it would have to be to cover so many topics. It flows naturally between pop culture analysis, memoir, and existential topics. The three elements always enhance one another. Many of the essays built to an emotional peak, leaving me struck by the author’s description of grief or of the poignant contradictions racism creates in this country. Not every essay in this collection pulled me in emotionally. The pieces that didn’t were just really good, while many of the other essays in this collection and every piece in the later two collections are complete masterpieces.’

I may have said this in a previous review, but these essays are incredible at both the structural and sentence level. I feel like the author’s background as a poet might help him here. Every word feels intentionally chosen. There’s a good rhythm to the sentences and a feeling of movement through each essay. I could sometimes see the author developing techniques that he uses in the later collections. For example, one essay in this collection uses ampersands and very few periods, allowing neighboring sentences to merge. I thought this technique was used to better effect in A Little Devil in America, where they created a lovely flowing rhythm that wasn’t quite as well executed here. I think I’m glad I read this collection last, so I could appreciate where these beginnings would take the author. I could see reading them in order being satisfying too though, watching this incredible author hone his craft.

There are a number of authors whose new books I will definitely read, but can think of few whose work I’d buy without reading it first. With three practically perfect essay collections, Hanif Abdurraqib is definitely going on that list.

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