Saga Boy: My Life of Blackness and Becoming

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One of my favorite lines in Shakespeare is in Henry V. There’s a new adaptation on Netflix called The King— I don’t know if you like historical dramas, but I love that shit. Anyway, Henry is a wayward kid, the saga boy, here there and everywhere. Then his dad dies, and he becomes king. Now he has to be responsible. And Henry has this great line, that basically means: “They judge me by my younger days, but not what use I’ve made of them.” Saga Boy the book is about my younger days. The album is about the use I’ve made of them, the man I’ve become because of that journey, my healing and my celebration of that. Downing's elegant, engaging memoir will have particular significance to readers from the Caribbean diaspora, but it will be understood by any reader who has ever had their world suddenly upended and needed to make it whole again." In the book, I don’t tell you I went to dancehall parties as a teenager. I describe how we went to someone’s house, people were making out outside, something was throbbing and pulsing and I didn’t know what it was. Suddenly, I’m in the basement and people are dancing and banging on the furnace. And the DJ is yelling, “Wheeeeeeel selector!” I want you to feel it. Taste it. Get it on your skin and in your nostrils, so you know what I’m going through. Downing seamlessly blends poetic images, music, and storytelling to create a poignant and stunningly honest memoir of a young man’s adamant determination to navigate his position and find himself despite the boundaries of colonialism, racism, and the endless sense of disbelonging.”

Saga Boy, London (2023) - FoodBevg Saga Boy, London (2023) - FoodBevg

Joan tried to stop it, but when Michael was twelve, the two boys ended up going to live with their father and stepmother, Al and Hailey. No, it’s OK. I don’t like talking small. Her wisdom, and way of moving through the world, is her legacy to me. In the same way that she read the Psalms of David in the Bible, music was another way for her to pray. Isolated and longing for home, Downing begins a decades-long journey to transform himself through music and performance. A reunion with his birth parents, whom he has known only through story, closes more doors than it opens. Instead, Downing seeks refuge in increasingly extravagant musical personalities: “Mic Dainjah,” a boisterous punk rapper; “Molasses,” a soul crooner; and, finally, an eccentric dystopian-era pop star clad in leather and gold, “John Orpheus.” In his mid-thirties, increasingly addicted to escapism, attention, and sex, Downing realizes he has become a “Saga Boy”—a Trinidadian playboy archetype—like his father and grandfather before him. When his choices land him in a jail cell, Downing must face who he has become.

This memoir really leaves me speechless. I think the author perfectly encapsulated life in his memoir, by spending time focusing on the little things of life as a child would. I find that this is the reason it took some time for me to get into this book. Lamees al Ethari, author of Waiting for the Rain: An Iraqi Memoir and From the Wounded Banks of the Tigris

Saga Boy | London - Facebook Saga Boy | London - Facebook

Singularly dazzling, Saga Boy is a brilliant collage of the twenty-first century's most incredible memoirs. Told with an unforgettable and innovative pace, this a book I will reread forever.”Yes, it made me feel better to sing. If people were watching me on stage, I must belong and be important. Right? It was a way to bolster my self-esteem. But not a very good one, because it falls apart. It became a place to process hurt. But also, I could sing for other people, and that was a miracle. Downing’s heart-wrenching memoir chronicles his saga of trying on and casting off many masks, learning the dimensions of the face through which he sees the world and the world sees him.” That quote sums up what Tony grew up wanting, what he needed to secure his emotional, mental, and physical well-being. The writing is simple yet poignant with a certain lyricism that is wholly Caribbean when we got it. An engaging narrative about the search for home, belonging, and identity.… [ Saga Boy is] intriguing, passionate, and often moving.”

SaGa (series) | SaGa Wiki | Fandom SaGa (series) | SaGa Wiki | Fandom

An insider’s account of the rampant misconduct within the Trump administration, including the tumult surrounding the insurrection of Jan. 6, 2021.You mentioned being traumatized as a kid. Did music lift those burdens, like how you described your grandma doing?

SAGA BOY | Kirkus Reviews

Downing writes with an almost brash quality. The prose is crisp and no-nonsense even when sharing trauma, he approaches it with the vulnerability and steel that can be found existing dually in children.

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