I’​m a dissenter from the near-universal praise for the new book by Ta-Nehisi Coates, as I write today in Politico:

Moses gave us the Ten Commandments. Paul gave us the epistles. And Ta-Nehisi gave us, Between the World and Me.
The new book by Atlantic writer Ta-Nehisi Coates, in the form of a letter to his son, has been greeted with a rapturous reception that brooks no dissent.
What everyone says about the literary power of Between the World and Me is correct. It is, in part, the story of the creation of a writer, and one with undeniably formidable gifts. But if you refuse to simply stare at the book in wonder as one who admires Michelangelo’s David and subject it to even minimal critical scrutiny, you will realize that it is profoundly silly at times, and morally blinkered throughout. It is a masterly little memoir wrapped in a toxic little Philippic.