Starred review from June 13, 2022
The late Emmy-nominated actor recounts his endeavor to overcome poverty, abuse, and addiction in this immensely inspiring and candid debut. Born in Brooklyn in 1966, Williams endured a difficult childhood marked by an absentee father, a suffocating and abusive mother, bullying friends, and molestation, before turning to drugs as a way of “letting me disappear from myself.” Employing the arts as a “form of rebellion,” Williams became a backup dancer and began appearing in music videos, where he started to unlearn “macho code” of suppressing his feelings: “If you push something down, it’ll find its way out,” he writes in one of the book’s many raw and moving scenes. “Jay-Z says we can’t heal what we never reveal. And it’s true.” A couple years later, Tupac Shakur spotted Williams’s headshot and launched his acting career in the mid 1990s, leading Williams to land his breakout role nearly a decade later as Omar on The Wire. While the intensity of his performances often reawakened Williams’s addiction struggles, he recounts how he used his hardships as inspiration “to bring others up” via organizations—such as his own nonprofit, Making Kids Win—that were dedicated to ending cycles of violence and poverty in marginalized communities. This bittersweet and poignant work will leave readers in awe.
September 15, 2022
The late TV star's memoir of life in Brooklyn, Baltimore, and the depths of addiction. Williams (1966-2021), who died from a drug overdose, was best known for playing Omar Little, the scar-faced antihero of The Wire, one of the most memorable TV characters of the past few decades. Omar, he writes, was informed by his upbringing in Brooklyn's projects and his own experience as an addict and gay Black man. Much of this memoir hits all the more poignantly with his death: He repeatedly notes how a recovering addict is only "one choice away" from falling off the wagon. Despite his tough exterior, Williams describes his early life as defined by vulnerability. He was the product of a broken home, often shy, and insecure about his sexuality. New York's club scene and an early career dancing in music videos gave him an escape hatch and a career path but also introduced him to a yearslong, off-and-on struggle with cocaine and crack addiction. He recalls coming off a three-day bender when he first met Barack Obama, a fan of The Wire, and his fame as Omar was psychically brutalizing: "I meditate on painful things all day long for a scene and when it's over, it's little wonder I'm tempted to go off and smoke crack." The prose is rarely more than workmanlike--co-author Sternfeld says the book was near completion when Williams died--but he projects an engaging humility and candor throughout. Those qualities are especially stark in the final pages, as Williams relates his growing awareness of politics, social justice, and the school-to-prison pipeline that undermines the lives of young Black boys. The author describes himself as having gotten closer to reconciling his art with his activism and conquering his demons, which makes his loss feel especially tragic. A bittersweet memento of a generational talent gone too soon.
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