Torrance T Stephens

Abstruse Torrance T Stephens

The essays of Torrance Stephens are towering. Using history, reason and logic, he fuses the experiences of his Memphis upbringing and his background in science to reinforce the importance of being skeptical in defining and informing the mind. His knowledge is somewhat encyclopedic but as you read him, it is like he is talking directly to the reader without lecturing. Stephens's is elegant, undisguised and humorous in his unfaltering salacity to expose and abrade hypocrisy wherever he sees it. Writing as a father, scientist, and social critic, he probes the complex condition of being black in America and explains why we as Black people have [in many cases] participated in the destruction and denouement of our own cause. With an acute eye, he examines everything from the failure of Black politicians and their desire to be the equal of white progressive liberals to the failure of the Black media, arts and entertainment communities to address these problems head on. He is critical and as a result, what emerges from this requisite collection is a knowledgeable self-portrait of a writer with an archetypal understanding of not only black life and black thought, but also of the world, history, economics and the human condition. Abstruse displays Stephens's as a master of the narrative-essay form. This collection of essays connects the personal and the political in a style that reflects the plainspoken and brilliant abilities of Torrance Stephens.