White brings with it dreams of respect, of wealth, of simply being
treated as a human being. It's the one thing Walter will never be. But
what if he could play white, the way so many others seem to do? Would it bring him privilege or simply deny the pain? The title story in this
collection asks those questions, and then moves on to challenge notions
of race, privilege, personal choice, and even life and death with equal
vigor.
From the spectrum spanning despair and hope in "What She
Saw When They Flew Away" to the stark weave of personal struggles in
"Chocolate Park," Let's Play White speaks with the voices of the
overlooked and unheard. "I Make People Do Bad Things" shines a
metaphysical light on Harlem's most notorious historical madame, and
then, with a deft twist into melancholic humor, "Cue: Change" brings a
zombie-esque apocalypse, possibly for the betterment of all mankind.
Gritty and sublime, the stories of Let's Play White feature real people facing the worlds they're given, bringing out the
best and the worst of what it means to be human. If you're ready to slip into someone else's skin for a while, then it's time to come play
white.
"These raw, brutal
stories, often with intriguingly open endings, display an odd and
unsettling relationships to the poetry of violence. These dark tales
announce the arrival of a formidable new master of the macabre." – Samuel R. Delany, author of Dhalgren and Through the Valley of the Nest of Spiders
"What a stunning collection. Let's Play White... and so on time. [Chesya Burke has] touched something special in [her]
stories. I'm a big Octavia Butler fan and I see a peek of that as well
as some latter-day Toni Morrison [within these pages]. I see the light
and warmth [Chesya is] offering. There definitely is magic in that. The
short story, next to poetry, is the most difficult writing form. [Chesya has] tamed it and made it yield to [her] touch." – Nikki Giovanni, Grammy-nominated spoken word artist and poet
