I Just Keep Talking

A Life in Essays

By: Nell Irvin Painter

Narrated by: Nell Irvin Painter

From the New York Times bestselling author of The History of White People and Old in Art School, a finalist for the NBCC Award, comes a comprehensive new collection of essays spanning art, politics, and the legacy of racism that shapes American history as we know it.

Throughout her prolific writing career, Nell Painter has published works on such luminaries as Sojourner Truth, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Malcolm X. Her unique vantage on American history pushes the boundaries of personal narrative and academic authorship. Led by an unbridled curiosity for her subjects, Painter asks readers to reconsider ideas of race, politics, and identity. I Just Keep Talking assembles her writing for the first time into a single volume, displaying the breadth and depth of Painter’s decades-long historical inquiry and the evolution of Black political thought—and includes a dazzling introduction and coda being published for the first time in this collection. From her mining of figures like Carrie Buck and Martin Delaney for their resonance today, to a deep dive into the history of exclusion through the work of Toni Morrison, to a discussion of the American political landscape after the 2016 election, Painter nimbly portrays the trials of a country frequently at war with itself.

Along with Painter’s writing, this collection offers her original artwork, threaded throughout the book as counterpoint and emphasis. Her visual art shows a deft mind turning toward the tragedy and humor of her subjects; pulling from newspapers, personal records, and original sketches, Painter’s artwork testifies to the dialectic of tremendous change and stasis that continues to shape American history.

These essays resist easy answers in favor of complexity, the inescapable sense of our country’s potential thwarted by its failures. This collection will surely solidify Painter’s place among the finest critics and writers of the last half century.

This audiobook includes a downloadable PDF that contains artwork and other visuals from the book.

Author reader

What an amazing opportunity to hear the Author read her essays which cover a lifetime of research and deep insights

Rich Work, Must Relisten

Painter is an excellent researcher. These details she brings out just pop. The analysis is very convincing although her arguments hew towards conventional politics. I feel the young American socialist movement has arguments and points which could deepen and nuance some of these things but I also am sensitive to the possibility that she might lose chunks of her older audience. I do wonder though, what age group is her audience?

The History of White People was deeply influential to me so it's a pleasure to hear the personal details as she shaped much of my thinking.