The back cover of Elizabeth Pryor’s new book labels the work biography/autobiography. More accurately, it is an amalgam of coming-of-age memoir, celebrity bio, African American history, and a scholarly treatise on the fraught, explosive evolution of “the N-word.” Her interest—let’s say obsession—with the word, though, is not merely academic. A
Steerforth, January 2024, 336 pp. Along with enticing images of gowns, news about celebrity weddings, and tips for choosing rings, a recent issue of Brides magazine offered “65 Happy Marriage Quotes that Will Inspire Every Couple.” The quotations, by Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Justin Timberlake, George Clooney and Alfred, Lord
