ANDRE PERRY reads from his debut essay collection SOME OF US ARE HUNGRY NOW

Some of Us Are Hungry Now (Two Dollar Radio)

With luminous insight and fervent prose, Andre Perry's debut collection of personal essays, Some of Us Are Very Hungry Now, travels from Washington
DC to Iowa City to Hong Kong in search of both individual and national identity. While displaying tenderness and a disarming honesty, Perry catalogs racial degradations committed on the campuses of elite universities and liberal bastions like San Francisco while coming of age in America.

The essays in Some of Us Are Very Hungry Now take the form of personal reflection, multiple choice questions, screenplays, and imagined talk-show conversations, while traversing the daily minefields of childhood schoolyards and Midwestern dive-bars. The impression of Perry’s personal journey is arresting and beguiling, while announcing the author’s arrival as a formidable American voice.

Praise for Some of Us Are Very Hungry Now:

“The gift of Some Of Us Are Very Hungry Now is in its brilliant and lyrical meandering. Andre Perry is a generous writer—one who is unafraid of the vulnerability that exists in inviting readers into a world that questions place and belonging. This book is essential, for how it asks with no expectation of answer.”—Hanif Abdurraqib

“Please welcome Andre Perry and give him your attention. With an arsenal of honesty, outrage, and vulnerability, his essays are going to jolt you out of the dullness of whatever room you’re reading in and shove you into someplace new. It’ll feel uncomfortable, sometimes hilarious, heartbreaking often, and ultimately transcendent.”—John D’Agata

"A debut collection of interrelated essays finds a young writer trying to navigate his way through identity and challenges of race, privilege, sexuality, and culture. Reflective and creative... [Some of Us Are Very Hungry Now is] a promising first book."—Kirkus

"Andre Perry’s writing is utterly alive, scene-setting, visceral, candid and punk. Perry’s prose is transporting in this vivid experimental memoir, tackling gentrification, music, sexuality and the mutability of identity. Perry takes the reader along as he travels the world and untangles who he is from particular American racist mythologies. A remarkable debut."—Jessica Hopper, author of Night Moves

"In this complex and compelling collection, Andre Perry holds his focus on all who seek to anonymize his sensitive and singular voice. His unwavering critical eye is attended by a kind of heartsick self-awareness; while he might pull a few punches from those who deserve it, he never spares himself."—Amelia Gray, author of Isadora 

"Some of Us Are Hungry Now is like nothing I have ever experienced. The brilliance, transparency, and earnest exploration of race, class, politics, sexuality, and notions of home are collectively so nuanced that I am certain this book is like a comet—you might never see the likes of it again. With a critical gaze as sharp as James Baldwin's, and the divineness of a cinematic masterpiece as artistically complex and boundless as Moonlight, Andre Perry knows what it means to pull weeping from the soul. To be his reader is not merely an honor but a necessity. This is a book to treasure and to uphold for its genre-bending prowess and reach into the depths of popular culture, as one of the great responses to the question, what are we? Listen to Perry, for his voice is alive now, and real in a time that we, in this America, need more than ever. In these daring pages—unafraid, even in the dark—a literary star lights the sky."—Tameka Cage Conley, PhD

Andre Perry lived in post-dot-com crash San Francisco in the early 2000s. He worked first in tech and advertising before becoming a middle-school teacher. At night, he navigated the local independent music scene, playing in several bands and producing events for artists across mediums. After moving to Iowa City in 2005, he co-founded the Midwest edition of the week-long music and literature gathering Mission Creek Festival. He continues to work on the festival as well as other arts and community-building projects. He teaches periodically at the University of Iowa and has worked closely with the Association for Performing Arts Professionals. He also writes and plays music. This is his first book.