Here for It: Or, How to Save Your Soul in America

By: R. Eric Thomas

R. Eric Thomas didn't know he was different until the world told him so. Everywhere he went--whether it was his rich, mostly white, suburban high school, his conservative black church, or his Ivy League college in a big city--he found himself on the outside looking in. In his debut essay collection, Thomas writes about struggling to reconcile his Christian identity with his sexuality, the exhaustion of code-switching in college, the surreal experience of covering the 2016 election for Elle online, and the seismic changes that came thereafter. Ultimately, Thomas seeks the answer to the ever more relevant question: Is the future worth it? As the world continues to shift in unpredictable ways, Thomas answers this question by re-envisioning what "normal" means and in the powerful alchemy that occurs when you at last place yourself at the center of your own story.