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Harbors
Suspended between continents and cultures, Donald Quist charts the forceful undercurrents of an American identity. Through these essays Quist explores feelings of oppression and alienation as he wrestles with a single act of violence in a Washington, D.C. suburb, racial tensions in a rural South Carolina town, and the welcome anonymity of crowded Bangkok streets. These personal narratives are rich with Quist’s experience growing up as a person of color caught between parents, socioeconomic classes, and the countries he calls home.
Cover design by Maggie Chiang
Layout and design by LK James
Editing by Tatiana Ryckman
Copyediting by Emily Roberts
Cover design by Maggie Chiang
Layout and design by LK James
Editing by Tatiana Ryckman
Copyediting by Emily Roberts
113 pages, Kindle Edition
Published December 21, 2016
3 people are currently reading
98 people want to read
About the author
Donald Quist
6 books66 followersDonald Quist is author of two essay collections, Harbors, a Foreword INDIES Bronze Winner and International Book Awards Finalist, and TO THOSE BOUNDED. He has a linked story collection, For Other Ghosts. His writing has appeared in AGNI, North American Review, Michigan Quarterly Review, The Rumpus, and was Notable in Best American Essays 2018. He is creator of the online nonfiction series PAST TEN. Donald has received fellowships from Sundress Academy for the Arts and Kimbilio Fiction. He has served as a Gus T. Ridgel fellow for the English PhD program at University of Missouri and Director of the MFA in Writing at Vermont College of Fine Arts.
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Displaying 1 - 26 of 26 reviews
May 29, 2017
Donald Quist is a fantastic writer for a number of reasons.
His subject, exploring race and identity from his perspective as a black American man living in Thailand, is endlessly fascinating for its twists and turns. Quist redoubles and examines his life and childhood from fascinating angles. He doesn't pretend that his feelings are simple or one-sided or monolithic.
His prose is gorgeous.
"Children can swing sharp, cleaving insults; like tiny butchers, they chop down hard for deep cuts."
"They let me leave without having to show identification, and a mix of resentment, gratitude, and guilt covered me like a heavy coat."
"English is everywhere, and whether it is a spa promotion or a sale on high heels, for a moment you are literate again."
More than anything, though, Quist is unabashedly honest. Honesty, in my view, is what separates great authors from merely successful ones. Quist stares his subject in the eye. He tells the truth about himself, and his marriage, his community and his country. He doesn't make it easy for anyone, least of all himself.
You need to read this book.
His subject, exploring race and identity from his perspective as a black American man living in Thailand, is endlessly fascinating for its twists and turns. Quist redoubles and examines his life and childhood from fascinating angles. He doesn't pretend that his feelings are simple or one-sided or monolithic.
His prose is gorgeous.
"Children can swing sharp, cleaving insults; like tiny butchers, they chop down hard for deep cuts."
"They let me leave without having to show identification, and a mix of resentment, gratitude, and guilt covered me like a heavy coat."
"English is everywhere, and whether it is a spa promotion or a sale on high heels, for a moment you are literate again."
More than anything, though, Quist is unabashedly honest. Honesty, in my view, is what separates great authors from merely successful ones. Quist stares his subject in the eye. He tells the truth about himself, and his marriage, his community and his country. He doesn't make it easy for anyone, least of all himself.
You need to read this book.
September 22, 2016
Harbors makes a complicated discussion about race and identity accessible to everyone. Through his personal experience and thoughtful hindsight, Quist invites us readers to consider what could happen if we were to take our entire lives--including the way we think about ourselves--into our own hands.
October 3, 2016
Beautiful and provocative essay collection.
October 8, 2016
The wonderfully titled Harbors, by Donald Quist, is both reflective and intense. I was struck by the range of its essays. One of my favorites recalled the author's relationship with his grandmother -- who was, what we'd call in the South, a "real character". She watched Jerry Springer and television preachers, and her door was always open to drunks and addicts who would stumble by to share their stories (and she'd share her vodka). His granduncle, who shared the house, was a church-goer who enjoyed the respect of the community. But the essay shows how our lives are much more complex than any easy summary might make it seem.
I'd read a few of these essays when they were published over the last year or so, but nothing prepared me for the impact of the complete collection. It's a beautiful book, for one thing, something that deserves to be noted in a time when publishers save as much as they can wherever they can. The print, while small, is elegant; the paper is thick and of high quality. And the cover is just gorgeous. I read ebooks, but I want to hold this one in my hand. But it's what's inside this collection that really makes it remarkable.
In addition to tender and honest portraits of his family members, Quist writes about his time spent working for the mayor's office of a small South Carolina town at a time of racial tension, and the ambiguity he feels in his role. He writes of growing up, working at the mall's Spencer's (which will ring a bell for anyone who came of age in the 80s) and how it was to be a geeky bookish adolescent (the detail of his favorite authors of that time---RL Stine and Camus---had me howling in recognition), are shared with a big-hearted sympathy to the boy he was.
Other pieces recount the feelings of isolation Quist experienced as a black male living in America. The way black bodies are attacked here, not newly since the time of social media but throughout his lifetime and beyond. Reading these essays gave me---someone who may be about his age, who was raised white and female about an hour's drive from the South Carolina locations he describes---a very physical sense of the way the bodies we inhabit shape the lives we have in a very real and impersonal way. These feelings become more articulate once Quist and his wife decided to move to her home country of Thailand, where they live today. Like James Baldwin (or, it must be said, Ta-Nehisi Coates) living and writing in Paris, Quist's view of these United States is sharp. At times angry, and at times revelatory, this is a brilliant collection.
I'd read a few of these essays when they were published over the last year or so, but nothing prepared me for the impact of the complete collection. It's a beautiful book, for one thing, something that deserves to be noted in a time when publishers save as much as they can wherever they can. The print, while small, is elegant; the paper is thick and of high quality. And the cover is just gorgeous. I read ebooks, but I want to hold this one in my hand. But it's what's inside this collection that really makes it remarkable.
In addition to tender and honest portraits of his family members, Quist writes about his time spent working for the mayor's office of a small South Carolina town at a time of racial tension, and the ambiguity he feels in his role. He writes of growing up, working at the mall's Spencer's (which will ring a bell for anyone who came of age in the 80s) and how it was to be a geeky bookish adolescent (the detail of his favorite authors of that time---RL Stine and Camus---had me howling in recognition), are shared with a big-hearted sympathy to the boy he was.
Other pieces recount the feelings of isolation Quist experienced as a black male living in America. The way black bodies are attacked here, not newly since the time of social media but throughout his lifetime and beyond. Reading these essays gave me---someone who may be about his age, who was raised white and female about an hour's drive from the South Carolina locations he describes---a very physical sense of the way the bodies we inhabit shape the lives we have in a very real and impersonal way. These feelings become more articulate once Quist and his wife decided to move to her home country of Thailand, where they live today. Like James Baldwin (or, it must be said, Ta-Nehisi Coates) living and writing in Paris, Quist's view of these United States is sharp. At times angry, and at times revelatory, this is a brilliant collection.
October 28, 2016
This series of essays has helped me frame some new ways of looking and feeling qbout our world through the lens of a young essayist who is not railing against the world but is clearly trying to understand the world. Mr. Quist puts out some feelings that are authentic and raw and personal. He seems to be wrestling with himself in this collection not with others. And, from his personal wrestling match many of us can find some valuable insights to will enlarge our perspective as we view our worlds. The title of this book is HARBORS, which I am liking more and more as I think of the book: The Harbor created by a Thank You. The Harbor created by a "Sorry". The Harbor created by a middle school student asking a question of a "real writer". Those harbors did, apparently, provide some cover from inward storms. I have read it once and plan to read again and then maybe again. And, I am going to suggest that there are a lot of teens who might be aided in their own navigation of life if they are exposed to some of Mr. Quist's memories.
Read
July 6, 2020Urgency and grace.
November 4, 2016
If you've never pre-ordered a book on a whim after receiving an email promotion from a publisher, Harbors (2016, 1st Edition published by Awst Press, cover illustration by Maggie Chiang) by Donald Quist is proof that sometimes your whims can lead you in the right direction. Although I live pretty frugally by choice, I do spend money on books. The expense was certainly worth it this time.
When I opened Harbors, tucked inside the front cover was a postcard announcing the book's publication. The card displayed the same contemplative cover art as appears on the book's cover. A lone figure rows past a lighthouse and huge rocks toward a dock inside a snug harbor. The hues in Maggie Chiang's illustration range softly from powder blue to aquamarine and charcoal. In the message portion of the postcard, a handwritten note from Donald Quist invited me to send my thoughts on the book to his personal email account. That was super nice! I did email him what I am publishing to the world here on my little blog.
Quist divided the book into two distinct yet complementary parts designated Log I and Log II. Each log contains chapters and each chapter contains sub-chapters or sections. Within each section Quist details nonfictional experiences from various periods of his life. The events in Log I take place in the United States, while the events in Log II occur mostly in Thailand as base camp or while Quist is ten thousand feet in the air between continents. Quist's memories while in Thailand and while traveling take him back to his life in the U.S. Informing you of this structure has nothing to do with how I read the book. I'm not recommending any strategy for reading this other than diving in.
Quist writes in a tone that seems casual, but is acutely thoughtful. He brings the reader along with him from the opening sentence which contains a recollection that immediately takes us back in time to his awkward childhood. People like to pretend that they grow up and forget about the scuffles, slights, and embarrassments of their youth, but they don't in reality. Many of us certainly do not forget about the comeuppances and hard lessons, the unfairnesses and disappointments. We keep those close by at all times. Quist shares his life in an honest tone that does not excuse him or anyone for their past actions. As the author ages, the reader witnesses his coping mechanisms and his moments of terror, confusion, or frustration. He leads the reader through his realizations about his family, the funerals, the church that always looms in the southern U.S., the Jerry Springer effect on society, and his difficult time as public information officer for the town of Hartsville, South Carolina. Racial tension in the southern United States is a topic that never goes away for too many reasons to go into here. You feel it in Log I in narrative that, at times, seems matter-of-fact, but Quist's vigilance forces the reader to reevaluate what we think we already know. Quist juxtaposes his alternately blunt and eloquent anger with, in the next breath, anecdotes whereby he exhibits his forgiving nature as he grows up and takes care of his aging family members. He delivers these histories in a magnification by which the reader understands the smells and images that surround the author at each stage.
Another structural choice utilized by Quist and which I found unique and effective were the shifts in perspective as delivery methods. For example, the chapter of Log I entitled "Tanglewood" he switches to second person point of view to recount the experience of reading his work to a room full of middle school students. The disarming vulnerability he shares with the reader draws its potency in part from this skillful shift in point of view. In another section in Log I, "In Other Words", he imagines his wife's explanations to the customers of her restaurant as to why she and Quist are closing up and moving to Thailand. The imaginary conversations are italicized, but at some point Quist shifts (still using italics) to what reads like a true account of a discussion between him and his wife. He also appears to describe true accounts of incidents that happened at the restaurant when he was enraged by the infuriating presumptions of certain customers. In the shifting back and forth, he articulates his own frustrations and fears as well as his hopes for the strength of the relationship he and his wife have built. But like skilled writers do so well, he does not define his emotion in first-person personal pronoun-verb-adjective structures; he demonstrates it in the actions he recounts and in the conversations surrounding events that he describes. The structural choices in these chapters and in many other sections effect powerful emotional responses from the reader. We sense that familiar insecurity and excitement that comes before tectonic shifts in the foundation of the life to which we've become accustomed. Through his choice of methods, Quist gathers the paradise that contains humanity with all its foibles, falsities, and fascinations.
By the time I began Log II, I was in that satisfying place you reach in some books: you are fully embracing the journey, and then the author succeeds in making it even more intriguing. At this point, I tweeted at Quist: "3/4 of the way through "Harbors" by @DonaldEWQuist : a cartography of satisfying crispness like paper rustling in a quiet chamber". "Cartography", by the way, is the name of the first chapter within Log II. I was completely swept up and when I get swept up I like to express it. Hence, the tweet.
The shift between Log I and Log II is not stark, but it is palpable. The dramatic change in setting explains a substantial part of the difference. But Quist experiences in Thailand a re-run of racial consciousness, only without the historical scrim of American Slavery. The racial concerns are laid bare in Thailand. Many people in Thailand, according to Quist's account of the comments made by his wife's family, do not understand why someone would marry a person of a different race if that race is darker. "Why, after spending over ten years in America, hadn't she chosen a white man instead?" This incredulity certainly isn't better than the American brand of racism. It is only a slight difference and no comfort, though his wife claims that the reason people stare at them as a mixed-race couple in the streets of Bangkok is not based in hatred. In strange contrast, he notes a difference in the ease of getting a taxi now that the military has taken over the government in Thailand. Taxi drivers must pick up everyone in order from the taxi queue. Before the advent of this system, he had difficulty getting a taxi to pick him up and he assumes (most likely correctly) that it was because of his complexion. So, he benefits from an otherwise negative shift in Thailand. When military takes over a country's government, Westerners cringe at the thought. Yet in this small way and perhaps in many other small ways, the African-American Quist benefits in Thailand where he otherwise suffered a similar racism. It's a frustrating set of circumstances. He has found a harbor in a place an American would least expect it.
While flying to Bangkok in 2012, Quist thinks back to his time growing up in the southern U.S. as an African-American teenager when he and two friends, also minorities, are accosted in Quist's own driveway by a police officer. The officer instructs them to lie facedown on wet asphalt, which they do until the officer understands that they are in front of Quist's home. The officer tells them that they make people nervous by hanging around and says that phrase that echoes, "You shouldn't be here." That notion rings loudly in Quist's ears. By contrast when flying back from Seattle to Asia in 2014, he recalls how many of his friends did not view him as black enough: "I remember friends of all colors teasing about how white I am, citing the way I speak, the shows I watch, the music I listen to, and what I read as evidence of my unbearable whiteness." Quist's thoughts meander while he flies between continents and he realizes that despite the racism he senses from the Thai people, "...I am profiled less in Bangkok. Fewer expectations and presumptions are based on my race."
As the book ends with a powerful address to his father's memory, the reader is left to consider the meaning of the word harbor. In the unfolding narratives in this book, Quist's character has been a harbor for people in his life who sought acceptance or experimentation. He has also sought harbor in people and places and, ultimately, in himself. I came away from this emotive and provocative work thinking about the analogy of docking ourselves in safe harbors versus drifting dangerously without a harbor. We think that new places will be different despite the fact that we bring ourselves with us wherever we go. We think people will be different, but they are the same everywhere we land once we've been there long enough to see past the mist of cultural mystique.
The facts that Quist tackles in this work are in many ways too big for a single book and in other ways necessarily addressed in his chosen medium. He faces head-on the complexity of how we think and talk about race. He comments in one section about how angry he felt after reading Claudia Rankine's "Citizen". I felt angry after reading "Citizen", as well. I don't know what kind of person would not feel angry after reading it. My response to anger is often sublimation. What does anger do for us? It can be a motivator. It can be a path towards change. It can be a path to eventual discouragement. Expressing anger in a controlled way is a skill that only the emotionally mature can accomplish. Talking about anger, aside from the psychological benefits of doing so, can spread and diffuse the anger contained in one vessel. It can energize a populous. It can be destructive as well as creative. When anger subsides, what is left of a person? The ability to reflect on what made one angry, the response, and its repercussions separates us from what we call our animal nature. But what are you supposed to do when no one listens to your reasons for being angry? In my life I've always worked from the premise that exposing negative motivations (what people call "bad" or "evil") helps to destroy them or alter them to something more healthy/positive. Understanding can lead to redirection. But some people cannot be persuaded because they have no impetus for giving up their power. And in small minds, power, hatred and violence are too easily intertwined. We enter battles and come back wounded. While we heal, we seek the company of people we trust and we gain strength from the bonds we've allowed. Once we have recovered sufficiently, we go out again into the battle we choose or that is chosen for us. This is one of the cycles in which we live, in which Quist lives. As he flies back to Bangkok from the U.S. in 2015 he notes: "I remember watching news coverage of rioters tearing through Ferguson and Baltimore. I recognized that fury. I understood the rage born from feeling ignored for so long, let down for so long, the feeling that I don't really own anything but a life and body consistently threatened by a governing structure that promises to protect me. I recognized the desire to burn it all down in hopes of rising from the ashes."
Quist has the ability to use the stories of his past to teach without being didactic, without lecturing, without beating you over the head with a message. He expresses his conclusions in a confessional way and lets you consider your own options for approaching a conclusion. He does not suggest there is any right or wrong way to look at what he has decided to give you in this work. If you find a harbor in it, or if you don't, it is yours to determine.
When I opened Harbors, tucked inside the front cover was a postcard announcing the book's publication. The card displayed the same contemplative cover art as appears on the book's cover. A lone figure rows past a lighthouse and huge rocks toward a dock inside a snug harbor. The hues in Maggie Chiang's illustration range softly from powder blue to aquamarine and charcoal. In the message portion of the postcard, a handwritten note from Donald Quist invited me to send my thoughts on the book to his personal email account. That was super nice! I did email him what I am publishing to the world here on my little blog.
Quist divided the book into two distinct yet complementary parts designated Log I and Log II. Each log contains chapters and each chapter contains sub-chapters or sections. Within each section Quist details nonfictional experiences from various periods of his life. The events in Log I take place in the United States, while the events in Log II occur mostly in Thailand as base camp or while Quist is ten thousand feet in the air between continents. Quist's memories while in Thailand and while traveling take him back to his life in the U.S. Informing you of this structure has nothing to do with how I read the book. I'm not recommending any strategy for reading this other than diving in.
Quist writes in a tone that seems casual, but is acutely thoughtful. He brings the reader along with him from the opening sentence which contains a recollection that immediately takes us back in time to his awkward childhood. People like to pretend that they grow up and forget about the scuffles, slights, and embarrassments of their youth, but they don't in reality. Many of us certainly do not forget about the comeuppances and hard lessons, the unfairnesses and disappointments. We keep those close by at all times. Quist shares his life in an honest tone that does not excuse him or anyone for their past actions. As the author ages, the reader witnesses his coping mechanisms and his moments of terror, confusion, or frustration. He leads the reader through his realizations about his family, the funerals, the church that always looms in the southern U.S., the Jerry Springer effect on society, and his difficult time as public information officer for the town of Hartsville, South Carolina. Racial tension in the southern United States is a topic that never goes away for too many reasons to go into here. You feel it in Log I in narrative that, at times, seems matter-of-fact, but Quist's vigilance forces the reader to reevaluate what we think we already know. Quist juxtaposes his alternately blunt and eloquent anger with, in the next breath, anecdotes whereby he exhibits his forgiving nature as he grows up and takes care of his aging family members. He delivers these histories in a magnification by which the reader understands the smells and images that surround the author at each stage.
Another structural choice utilized by Quist and which I found unique and effective were the shifts in perspective as delivery methods. For example, the chapter of Log I entitled "Tanglewood" he switches to second person point of view to recount the experience of reading his work to a room full of middle school students. The disarming vulnerability he shares with the reader draws its potency in part from this skillful shift in point of view. In another section in Log I, "In Other Words", he imagines his wife's explanations to the customers of her restaurant as to why she and Quist are closing up and moving to Thailand. The imaginary conversations are italicized, but at some point Quist shifts (still using italics) to what reads like a true account of a discussion between him and his wife. He also appears to describe true accounts of incidents that happened at the restaurant when he was enraged by the infuriating presumptions of certain customers. In the shifting back and forth, he articulates his own frustrations and fears as well as his hopes for the strength of the relationship he and his wife have built. But like skilled writers do so well, he does not define his emotion in first-person personal pronoun-verb-adjective structures; he demonstrates it in the actions he recounts and in the conversations surrounding events that he describes. The structural choices in these chapters and in many other sections effect powerful emotional responses from the reader. We sense that familiar insecurity and excitement that comes before tectonic shifts in the foundation of the life to which we've become accustomed. Through his choice of methods, Quist gathers the paradise that contains humanity with all its foibles, falsities, and fascinations.
By the time I began Log II, I was in that satisfying place you reach in some books: you are fully embracing the journey, and then the author succeeds in making it even more intriguing. At this point, I tweeted at Quist: "3/4 of the way through "Harbors" by @DonaldEWQuist : a cartography of satisfying crispness like paper rustling in a quiet chamber". "Cartography", by the way, is the name of the first chapter within Log II. I was completely swept up and when I get swept up I like to express it. Hence, the tweet.
The shift between Log I and Log II is not stark, but it is palpable. The dramatic change in setting explains a substantial part of the difference. But Quist experiences in Thailand a re-run of racial consciousness, only without the historical scrim of American Slavery. The racial concerns are laid bare in Thailand. Many people in Thailand, according to Quist's account of the comments made by his wife's family, do not understand why someone would marry a person of a different race if that race is darker. "Why, after spending over ten years in America, hadn't she chosen a white man instead?" This incredulity certainly isn't better than the American brand of racism. It is only a slight difference and no comfort, though his wife claims that the reason people stare at them as a mixed-race couple in the streets of Bangkok is not based in hatred. In strange contrast, he notes a difference in the ease of getting a taxi now that the military has taken over the government in Thailand. Taxi drivers must pick up everyone in order from the taxi queue. Before the advent of this system, he had difficulty getting a taxi to pick him up and he assumes (most likely correctly) that it was because of his complexion. So, he benefits from an otherwise negative shift in Thailand. When military takes over a country's government, Westerners cringe at the thought. Yet in this small way and perhaps in many other small ways, the African-American Quist benefits in Thailand where he otherwise suffered a similar racism. It's a frustrating set of circumstances. He has found a harbor in a place an American would least expect it.
While flying to Bangkok in 2012, Quist thinks back to his time growing up in the southern U.S. as an African-American teenager when he and two friends, also minorities, are accosted in Quist's own driveway by a police officer. The officer instructs them to lie facedown on wet asphalt, which they do until the officer understands that they are in front of Quist's home. The officer tells them that they make people nervous by hanging around and says that phrase that echoes, "You shouldn't be here." That notion rings loudly in Quist's ears. By contrast when flying back from Seattle to Asia in 2014, he recalls how many of his friends did not view him as black enough: "I remember friends of all colors teasing about how white I am, citing the way I speak, the shows I watch, the music I listen to, and what I read as evidence of my unbearable whiteness." Quist's thoughts meander while he flies between continents and he realizes that despite the racism he senses from the Thai people, "...I am profiled less in Bangkok. Fewer expectations and presumptions are based on my race."
As the book ends with a powerful address to his father's memory, the reader is left to consider the meaning of the word harbor. In the unfolding narratives in this book, Quist's character has been a harbor for people in his life who sought acceptance or experimentation. He has also sought harbor in people and places and, ultimately, in himself. I came away from this emotive and provocative work thinking about the analogy of docking ourselves in safe harbors versus drifting dangerously without a harbor. We think that new places will be different despite the fact that we bring ourselves with us wherever we go. We think people will be different, but they are the same everywhere we land once we've been there long enough to see past the mist of cultural mystique.
The facts that Quist tackles in this work are in many ways too big for a single book and in other ways necessarily addressed in his chosen medium. He faces head-on the complexity of how we think and talk about race. He comments in one section about how angry he felt after reading Claudia Rankine's "Citizen". I felt angry after reading "Citizen", as well. I don't know what kind of person would not feel angry after reading it. My response to anger is often sublimation. What does anger do for us? It can be a motivator. It can be a path towards change. It can be a path to eventual discouragement. Expressing anger in a controlled way is a skill that only the emotionally mature can accomplish. Talking about anger, aside from the psychological benefits of doing so, can spread and diffuse the anger contained in one vessel. It can energize a populous. It can be destructive as well as creative. When anger subsides, what is left of a person? The ability to reflect on what made one angry, the response, and its repercussions separates us from what we call our animal nature. But what are you supposed to do when no one listens to your reasons for being angry? In my life I've always worked from the premise that exposing negative motivations (what people call "bad" or "evil") helps to destroy them or alter them to something more healthy/positive. Understanding can lead to redirection. But some people cannot be persuaded because they have no impetus for giving up their power. And in small minds, power, hatred and violence are too easily intertwined. We enter battles and come back wounded. While we heal, we seek the company of people we trust and we gain strength from the bonds we've allowed. Once we have recovered sufficiently, we go out again into the battle we choose or that is chosen for us. This is one of the cycles in which we live, in which Quist lives. As he flies back to Bangkok from the U.S. in 2015 he notes: "I remember watching news coverage of rioters tearing through Ferguson and Baltimore. I recognized that fury. I understood the rage born from feeling ignored for so long, let down for so long, the feeling that I don't really own anything but a life and body consistently threatened by a governing structure that promises to protect me. I recognized the desire to burn it all down in hopes of rising from the ashes."
Quist has the ability to use the stories of his past to teach without being didactic, without lecturing, without beating you over the head with a message. He expresses his conclusions in a confessional way and lets you consider your own options for approaching a conclusion. He does not suggest there is any right or wrong way to look at what he has decided to give you in this work. If you find a harbor in it, or if you don't, it is yours to determine.
November 14, 2016
A five-star book that that teaches about race, identity, and compassion, and does so with calm and steady prose (as if you were having a discussion with a dear friend). The tone in this book is warm and inviting, even through the most trying and demanding essays. I cannot wait for Mr. Quist's next triumph.
October 6, 2016
I enjoyed this book. Great read for a plane ride.
Read
November 20, 2024As I wrote when I received a review copy, at a time when honest discussions of race, class, and violence are both necessary and too often simplistic, along comes Donald Quist. Perhaps this is what it takes - a uniquely positioned literary talent - to get us past familiar easy categories. In Harbors, Quist assembles fragments, memories, conversations both real and imagined to reveal people in all their complexity and contradictions as well as the shifting lines of privilege and oppression. As Quist writes of three continents, his slim volume becomes my passport.
August 29, 2018
I love that this is nonfiction that subverted form and, therefore, my expectations of what a memoir (or essay collection) should be. Quist shakes you down emotionally with his beautiful writing that puts you right there with him in all of these painful circumstances. On the lighter side, you also get these 90s pop culture references that a Millennial like me treasures, so it's well worth the trip to the dark.
October 27, 2016
My review of Harbors, at Cleaver Magazine: http://www.cleavermagazine.com/harbor...
December 16, 2016
During contentious presidential elections such as the one that just ended, some voters tend to offer up the notion of leaving the United States should candidate X win. The threat gets tossed about too glibly, especially when for years citizens have left this country after experiencing real—not anticipated—trials and hardships. Donald Quist, a black American writer and English lecturer living in Bangkok, Thailand, is one such expatriate and he examines his life and the urge to seek a new one abroad in a powerful essay collection, Harbors (Awst Press).
This book comes at a time when the volume of our social discourse is tuned to deafening levels and the back and forth spews at a head-spinning rate. Into the cacophony steps Quist with the fierce voice and loving, but critical eye of a 21st century James Baldwin. And since a whisper draws more attention than a shout, by the time in one of his essays Quist states calmly, clearly, succinctly, “I am angry,” he has us all by the ears and the words resonate to a depth of earth-shaking proportions.
Read the rest of this review at Assay: A Journal of Nonfiction Studies at this link.
This book comes at a time when the volume of our social discourse is tuned to deafening levels and the back and forth spews at a head-spinning rate. Into the cacophony steps Quist with the fierce voice and loving, but critical eye of a 21st century James Baldwin. And since a whisper draws more attention than a shout, by the time in one of his essays Quist states calmly, clearly, succinctly, “I am angry,” he has us all by the ears and the words resonate to a depth of earth-shaking proportions.
Read the rest of this review at Assay: A Journal of Nonfiction Studies at this link.
July 25, 2018
Contemporary. Memoir. Two categories of books I tend to shy away from, largely due to my job. I often look to books (and television) as a means to escape all the darkness, sadness, and hopelessness that I hear from clients day in and day out; so, of course, I read fantasy and YA :)
But when one of your high school classmates writes a book - a book that gets published nationally! - you'd best believe I'm reading it. And what a treat it is. Mr. Quist had me flipping page after page (don't let the length of time it took me to read this slim volume indicate otherwise) and kept me delving with him into the anonymous streets of Thailand and the confusing time of race in America. I just pre-ordered his second book, and I eagerly await reading what else Mr. Quist has to say.
But when one of your high school classmates writes a book - a book that gets published nationally! - you'd best believe I'm reading it. And what a treat it is. Mr. Quist had me flipping page after page (don't let the length of time it took me to read this slim volume indicate otherwise) and kept me delving with him into the anonymous streets of Thailand and the confusing time of race in America. I just pre-ordered his second book, and I eagerly await reading what else Mr. Quist has to say.
July 5, 2021
"I had made a mistake believing that some had earned a holy right to cast aspersions onto others, wrong in supposing one could ascertain another person's value through secondhand knowledge or brief glimpses into their lives. I can't sort all of those I encounter among the good and the bad. Considering how much I have yet to understand about myself, how can I assume to know everything about anyone else?"
This was a really beautiful collection of essays. I loved walking through Quist's life with him and reading his reflections on his different relationships and homes.
This was a really beautiful collection of essays. I loved walking through Quist's life with him and reading his reflections on his different relationships and homes.
August 28, 2018
I was hooked from the first page of this book. It’s not always something that happens. This book was beautifully written and interesting to read. I enjoyed the story of his life. I wanted to know more about the people in it and more about his personal journey. I found it relatable in many ways. I am trying to write this review without any spoilers. Really just read the book. It’s a good little book. I hope there will be more.
January 1, 2021
Had the pleasure of meeting this author in person at a reading once--he's a really wonderful person. Quist's nonfiction is nuanced, balanced, restrained, authentic. Quist writes about international flights, Spencer's Gifts and Toys, the Old Lady (his grandmother), Thailand, being Black in America during the death of Freddie Gray and the Susan Smith case, and much, much more, all with grace and candor. A really excellent collection.
August 22, 2017
(3.5) I had hoped for more essays like "I'll Fly Away: Notes on Economy Class Citizenship", which is a powerful look at the experience of racism in America, synthesizes themes from James Baldwin and Claudia Rankine, and is more essay than memoir.
April 14, 2019
Amazing essays about family, race, country and self. Quist really digs into his own personal experience and relates it to universal truths. It inspired taking hard looks at my own relationship with this country and with my place in it.
Can't recommend this book enough!
Can't recommend this book enough!
May 24, 2017
Don't miss this powerful collection. Quist's book cracks with energy. It's angry and honest, raw and forgiving, self-assured and self-assessing. Exceptional writing by an important voice.
December 9, 2018
Concise and incisive. Nothing superfluous, nothing missed. If I were to excerpt my favorite passages, I would have to duplicate the entire book. Read it now.
December 17, 2023
Quist has a unique poignancy in his narration that is seldom found in modern writing. These tales are deep, emotional, vivid, and at times, eye-opening. I cannot recommend this book more highly!
January 9, 2017
This is just a stunning collection of essays!
November 16, 2016
In this gripping collection of personal essays, Donald Quist shares his reflections on growing up under racial discrimination in the American South, his struggle with personal identity, and the integrity of his choices. Throughout, the author questions the moral relativity of his place in it all: a job as the mayor’s spokesman, effectively the local mouthpiece of a bigoted hegemony; a victim of bullying, victimizing fellow victims in turn; or what it means to be an expatriate—that nagging sense of abandoning a cause.
Moving into the present, the book addresses the nature of origins and destinations. From the perspective afforded him as an expat, Quist expands the book’s perspective here, examining for example what it means to be American in different skins, or the perception of skin tone in his new home—Thailand. Himself an expatriate, Quist better understands his own father's allegiance to his native Ghana, a bond that at times has taken precedence over his immediate “American” family.
An intricate web of links and conflicts, convictions and contradictions, HARBORS explores the nuances of these issues with a remarkable lucidity and honesty. Highly recommended.
Moving into the present, the book addresses the nature of origins and destinations. From the perspective afforded him as an expat, Quist expands the book’s perspective here, examining for example what it means to be American in different skins, or the perception of skin tone in his new home—Thailand. Himself an expatriate, Quist better understands his own father's allegiance to his native Ghana, a bond that at times has taken precedence over his immediate “American” family.
An intricate web of links and conflicts, convictions and contradictions, HARBORS explores the nuances of these issues with a remarkable lucidity and honesty. Highly recommended.
January 4, 2017
In a market that conceptualizes race as a political tool rather than a physical/emotional/psychic reality that we are all forced to endure, Donald Quist draws the reader into a personal relationship with himself and explains through himself how America is structured to leave some people out of the loop. You can't walk away from this book without feeling scarred or culpable or weighted in someway by its content. A truly magnificent writer is on the rise.
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June 2, 2017Donald Quist's Harbors does what good creative non-fiction should; it captures the moments of the mundane and draws out their latent meaning. From a retail job to Jerry Springer to a transatlantic flight, the painful issues surrounding racial identity are explored. A gorgeous and at times haunting set of essays.
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