“This candid and courageous work finds poetry in places both ordinary and extraordinary. It’s a quiet triumph.”

—Publishers Weekly STARRED Review

“Part cookbook, part jazz concert. 100% a deep and moving lovesong of a memoir.”

— Jacqueline Woodson, New York Times best-selling, National Book and Newbery award-winning author

“Kwame Alexander serves us morsels of memory, music, and mouth-watering love — not just love that sings and swings but also the kind that fractures and stings.”

— Jabari Asim, author of Yonder

“Kwame reveals how an everyday occurrence has profound emotion with the deft hand of a master. He tells his story and we reflect on our own. I cried, I laughed, I savored each word.”

— Mary Alice Monroe, New York Times bestselling author of The Islanders series

“This book is a brave monument to love, loss, and life by a man whose cries in the night helped him to grow and grieve. On every page, Kwame Alexander's words compel the reader to examine their hearts and actions toward the ones they love.”

— W. Ralph Eubanks, author of A Place Like Mississippi and Ever Is a Long Time

“Written with candor, warmth, and heart-wrenching grace, Why Fathers Cry at Night is nothing short of a marvel, animating humanity’s most important questions: What does it mean to grieve, to have the courage to surrender, to find a home in this tumultuous world, and to learn to love again? With radiance and poetic precision, Kwame Alexander’s words will remind you of art’s infinite sustenance. As soon as I turned the last page, I started again.”

— Adrienne Brodeur, author of Wild Game: My Mother, Her Lover, and Me

“Alexander connects disparate forms through his disarmingly forthright, humble voice, familiar vernacular, and optimism…This magnanimous hybrid-form memoir is rich with solace and wisdom.”

— Kirkus

“Alexander deploys his skillful lyricism to explore themes of failure in family and love in this genre-blending memoir. In narrative poems and short prose chapters, Alexander examines his relationships with his parents, his spouse, and his children with characteristic candor…But Alexander also makes space for sizzling moments of sensuality. A refreshing entry in the author's bountiful oeuvre.”

— Booklist

“Past, present, and future weave together in this lovely collection.”

— Book Riot

Why Fathers Cry at Night has also been selected and featured as:

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