The Dead Don't Need Reminding

This brilliant, adult nonfiction debut from the acclaimed MG author and poet weaves two wrenching personal narratives of recovery and reclamation, spliced with a dazzle of pop-culture

The Dead Don't Need Reminding is a braided story of Julian Randall's return from the cliff edge of a harrowing depression and his determination to retrace the hustle of a white-passing grandfather to the Mississippi town from which he was driven amid threats of tar and feather. 

Alternatively wry, lyrical, and heartfelt, Randall's voice bursts off the page with verve, humor, and a poet's eye for detail. In this book, Randall transforms pop culture moments into deeply personal explorations of grief, family, and the American way. He envisions his fight to stay alive through a striking medley of media ranging from Spiderman and Jordan Peele movies to BoJack Horseman and the music of Odd Future. Pulsing with life, sharp, and wickedly funny, The Dead Don't Need Reminding is Randall's journey to get his ghost story back.

"The Dead Don't Need Reminding is the--and I mean thee--freshest example of why them folks didn't want us reading, writing, queering, and questioning. I don't need a decade to know Randall has made a forever classic. And we, the Dead, so needed it."--Kiese Laymon, author of Heavy

Julian Randall is a contributor to the #1 New York Times bestseller Black Boy Joy and his middle-grade novel, Pilar Ramirez and the Escape From Zafa, was published by Holt in 2022. He has received fellowships from Cave Canem, Tin House, and Milkweed Editions. He is the winner of the 2019 Betty Berzon Emerging Writer Award from the Publishing Triangle, the 2019 Frederick Bock Prize, and a Pushcart prize. His poetry has been published in The New York Times Magazine, Ploughshares, and POETRY. His first book, Refuse, won the Cave Canem Poetry Prize and was a finalist for an NAACP Image Award. He lives in Chicago.