How to Slowly Kill Yourself and Others in America: Essays

Laymon is preparing himself to read a letter from his Black editor, Brandon Farley. Farley writes that the success of Laymon’s novel will depend on his playing to an audience with a different sensibility. As the book stands, Farley insists, there’s too much talk about racial politics and readers, “especially white readers, are tired of Black writers playing the wrong race card” (102). He encourages Laymon to use the Quentin Tarantino movie Django Unchained as a model. While the film has Black characters, Farley notes, whiteness “[anchors] almost every scene” (102). He concludes by saying that Black men don’t read and, if they did, they wouldn’t read the fiction Laymon is trying to produce. It would make more sense, Farley says, for Laymon to play to Black women. He could write a romance novel or a book about a strong woman “in professional hijinks who [has] no relationships with other sisters,” like the TV show Scandal (102). The only way Laymon’s book, in its current iteration, would make it is if Oprah picked it up, Farley says. Oprah, however, “only deals with real Black writers” (102).

Laymon types a response. He notes that he has revised this book for Farley 14 times in 4 years.