Losing my cool love, literature, and a black man's escape from the crowd

"The author describes his personal experiences growing up being influenced by hip-hop culture, while at the same time having his father encourage education and a love of literature, and how he struggled to accommodate both worlds in his life."@en
""A provocative, intellectual memoir" (USA Today)-from a remarkable new literary voice. Growing up, Thomas Chatterton Williams knew he loved three things in life: his parents, literature, and the intoxicating hip-hop culture that surrounded him. For years, he managed to juggle two disparate lifestyles, "keeping it real" in his friends' eyes and studying for the SATs under his father's strict tutelage-until it all threatened to spin out of control. Written with remarkable candor and emotional depth, Losing My Cool portrays the allure and danger of hip-hop culture with the authority of a true fan who's lived through it all, while demonstrating the saving grace of literature and the power of the bond between father and son."@en