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Jeff Sharlet

This Brilliant Darkness: A Book of Strangers Hardcover – Illustrated, February 11, 2020

by Jeff Sharlet (Author)

107 ratings

4.2 on Goodreads

335 ratings

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A visionary work of radical empathy.

Known for immersion journalism that is more immersed than most people are willing to go, and for a prose style that is somehow both fierce and soulful, Jeff Sharlet dives deep into the darkness around us and awaiting us.

This work began when his father had a heart attack; two years later, Jeff, still in his forties, had a heart attack of his own. In the grip of writerly self-doubt, Jeff turned to images, taking snapshots and posting them on Instagram, writing short, true stories that bloomed into documentary. During those two years, he spent a lot of time on the road: meeting strangers working night shifts as he drove through the mountains to see his father; exploring the life and death of Charley Keunang, a once-aspiring actor shot by the police on LA’s Skid Row; documenting gay pride amidst the violent homophobia of Putin’s Russia; passing time with homeless teen addicts in Dublin; and accompanying a lonely woman, whose only friend was a houseplant, on shopping trips.

Early readers have called this book “incantatory,” the voice “prophetic,” in “James Agee’s tradition of looking at the reality of American lives.” Defined by insomnia and late-night driving and the companionship of other darkness-dwellers―night bakers and last-call drinkers, frightened people and frightening people, the homeless, the lost (or merely disoriented), and other people on the margins―This Brilliant Darkness erases the boundaries between author, subject, and reader to ask: how do people live with suffering?

116 photographs

Print length

336 pages
Language

English
Publisher

W. W. Norton & Company
Publication date

February 11, 2020
Dimensions

6.5 x 1 x 8.6 inches
ISBN-10

1324003200
ISBN-13

978-1324003205
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From the Publisher

Editorial Reviews

Review

"A luminous, moving and visual record of fleeting moments of connection."
― New York Times Book Review

"Sharlet's haunting photos accompany clipped, pointillist, but expressive prose that evokes character and tragedy...The result is a triumph of visual and written storytelling, both evocative and moving."
― Publishers Weekly (starred review)

"Sharlet provides a poignant and wholly intimate portrait of the lives of those who are often overlooked in our society, breathing a sense of humanity in a part of our world that is so often inhumane. A highly recommended book that is at times difficult to take in and difficult to put down."
― Library Journal (starred review)

"One of the most beautiful works I’ve ever read. This Brilliant Darkness is dazzling and addictive, a constellation of stories about how we love before we die. This book breathes."
― Blair Braverman, author of Welcome to the Goddamn Ice Cube

"A phenomenally original book that will press into your chest about as deeply as literature can go. Sharlet is his generation’s Steinbeck."
― Timothy Tyson, author of The Blood of Emmett Till

"Propelled and sustained by Sharlet’s crystalline attention and his electric voice, at once bold and precise, this stunning book will stay in me for good."
― Leslie Jamison, author of The Empathy Exams

"This book of photographs and extended captions becomes a gallery of souls, and somehow, by patient accretion, a guidebook to staying human in the panopticon. It speaks back to the deafening noise of our moment with quiet power."
― John Jeremiah Sullivan, author of Pulphead

"This Brilliant Darkness embodies what it invites―real consideration and reconsideration of our own company, what we fellow travelers do and do not share. Jeff Sharlet suggestively notes that our unreliable bodies are their own unreliable narrators. He has put his own on the line. Spend time with him there."
― Adrian Nicole LeBlanc, author of Random Family

"Bless Jeff Sharlet for not walking away, but sharing his humanity by bridging the deadly gap of isolation with love."
― Terry Tempest Williams, author of Erosion: Essays of Undoing

"[This Brilliant Darkness] shines like a fire in the night: It brings us close, lights the darkness, and shows us unseen worlds."
― Michael Lesy, author of Wisconsin Death Trip

About the Author

Jeff Sharlet is the New York Times best-selling author or editor of eight books, including The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power, adapted into a Netflix documentary series, and This Brilliant Darkness. His reporting on LGBTIQ+ rights around the world has received the National Magazine Award, the Molly Ivins Prize, and Outright International’s Outspoken Award. His writing and photography have appeared in many publications, including Vanity Fair, for which he is a contributing editor; the New York Times Magazine; GQ; Esquire; Harper’s; and VQR, for which he is an editor at large. He is the Frederick Sessions Beebe ’35 Professor in the Art of Writing at Dartmouth College, where he lives in the woods with many animals.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ W. W. Norton & Company; Illustrated edition (February 11, 2020)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 336 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1324003200
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1324003205
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.3 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6.5 x 1 x 8.6 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #858,293 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #303 in Photojournalism (Books)
- #439 in Poverty
- #723 in Photo Essays (Books)

Customer Reviews:
107 ratings

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Jeff Sharlet

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Jeff Sharlet is the New York Times and national bestselling author of THE FAMILY and C STREET, and executive producer of the 2019 Netflix five-part documentary series based on them, THE FAMILY. His newest book is THE UNDERTOW: Scenes from a Slow Civil War (W.W. Norton, March 2023). His other books include THIS BRILLIANT DARKNESS, SWEET HEAVEN WHEN I DIE, and RADIANT TRUTHS. With Peter Manseau he wrote KILLING THE BUDDHA and edited BELIEVER, BEWARE. Of SWEET HEAVEN WHEN I DIE, The Washington Post writes, "This book belongs in the tradition of long-form, narrative nonfiction best exemplified by Joan Didion, John McPhee [and] Norman Mailer… Sharlet deserves a place alongside such masters.” An article for GQ that became the beginning of THIS BRILLIANT DARKNESS won a National Magazine Award, and excerpts from C STREET were honored with the Molly Ivins Prize, the Thomas Jefferson Award, the Outspoken Award, and the National Lesbian & Gay Journalists Association's prize for feature writing. Barbara Ehrenreich called THE FAMILY "one of the most compelling and brilliantly researched exposes you'll ever read."

Sharlet is the Frederick Sessions Beebe '35 Professor in the Art of Writing at Dartmouth College, a contributing editor for Vanity Fair and editor-at-large for VQR. He has been a frequent commentator on MSNBC's "Rachel Maddow Show," "All in With Chris," and NPR's "Fresh Air." He has received grants and fellowships from The MacDowell Colony, the Blue Mountain Center, The Nation Institute, and other organizations. His writing on music has twice been featured in the annual BEST MUSIC WRITING volume.

Customer reviews

5 star		77%
4 star		11%
3 star		4%
2 star		3%
1 star		5%

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Top reviews from the United States

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Coyote

Worth a read.

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on May 17, 2022

Verified Purchase

Sort of like if Human's of New York had a Gonzo journalism bent.

Helpful

J. Christensen

A beautiful work of compassion and humility

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on March 9, 2020

Verified Purchase

Many reviews have commented that This Brilliant Darkness shows us people in the margins, people we might not otherwise know or see. But, I think it does a lot more than that: it shows us that we too inhabit the "margins." That the reader's suffering, longing, loneliness, fragility, and hopefulness is not so very different than that of those lives portrayed in the book. The pictures, beautiful and haunting, are ours too, taken with a camera phone and posted to Instagram, just as we do. The book is wonderful not because it's broad and big, but because it invites you into the small, intimate places where we all truly live, and where empathy and compassion and humility are most powerful. While the book is written as prose, each story a triumph of literary non-fictions, taken as a whole it is a work of lovely poetry.

10 people found this helpful

Helpful

DD Jones

Yeah, this is dark.

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on July 11, 2021

Verified Purchase

Take a walk into the dark side of life, if you like that sort of thing. As for me, the book was just a bit too gritty and focused on the sad circumstances some persons endure… but then, that was the point. I just prefer not to know some stuff.

2 people found this helpful

Helpful

Dave Kline

Interesting

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on November 22, 2020

Verified Purchase

It was a great idea for a book

Helpful

K. thacker

A refreshing use of photography and essays

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on March 9, 2020

Verified Purchase

I've been following Jeff's work on Instagram for years now and followed many of these proto-stories as he started to write and share them. When I learned that he'd be compiling them into a book with some of his other work I was excited. The book does not disappoint and doesn't pull any punches.

3 people found this helpful

Helpful

Alyssa

Stunning portrait of humanity

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on March 8, 2020

Verified Purchase

I do not have the words to write about this book and how it made me feel and how much I appreciate its existence. A true snapshot of humanity in it's many lesser-appreciated forms. Heart warming, heart wrenching, and altogether deeply moving. Thanks, Jeff (I hope I can call you that).

6 people found this helpful

Helpful

Hooded Merganser

Beautiful and haunting

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on December 17, 2020

Verified Purchase

I don’t think I can do these stories and observations justice. They are singular and universal. Just read the book.

2 people found this helpful

Helpful

L.A.