A few years ago, I read a book about string theory called The Elegant Universe. When I finished that book, I felt like someone who, having just woken up, has rubbed the last bit of sleep out of his eyes and can see his surroundings more clearly. There were entire planes of existence that I could not comprehend, that book had told me, elements to the world around me about which prior to reading Brian Greene’s book I had not even the slightest inkling.

Reading Between the World and Me was in many ways a similar experience, except that instead of leaving me with a sense of exhilaration and wonder it left me with a pervading feeling of sadness and shame. Like rubbing the sleep away just to get a clear-eyed view of the disgusting mess you passed out in, the detritus of whatever regrettable things you did the night before, and feeling the familiar first pangs of what is sure to be a terrible hangover.

I am a white heterosexual man and I could read this book over and over again between now and the day I die, probably of natural causes, probably well past the age of 70, and still never be able to claim to understand what it is to be a black man in America. It is a letter from the author to his son, in which Coates expresses his understanding of the world in which he has had to live, as well as the hopes and fears he harbors for his child. It was a letter that was not addressed to me and not intended for me, but I read it anyway and now I feel like I did after reading Greene’s book, like I’ve glimpsed a universe that has surrounded me all this time without my knowing and now I don’t know what I can or should do about it. I debated even writing this blog post – I’m even less qualified to share opinions about what it is to be black in America than I am to offer my thoughts on the intricacies of quantum physics. I never would have pretended to the right to author a review of Brian Greene.

So I won’t try to review this either, a book about which I can barely express my thoughts in any sort of coherent fashion. All I’ll say is that although I didn’t understand everything in The Elegant Universe, I still came away from that book glad I had read it. It made me aware, however dimly, of things about existence that I had never understood – that I could never have understood had someone not been there to tell me. Between the World and Me did the same thing.