Construction Site
No doubt about it, the title of this book is misleading. What sounds like a book about a medical technique is anything but: "For most of my adult life I felt that to become a person of complex and stirring character...I must break myself into pieces—hammer, saw, chisel away at the unworthy parts—then rebuild." This comparison to masonry work is the controlling metaphor of the book. Ultimately, the title will make complete sense even though it fulfills none of the expectations most bring to it.
Memoir
Technically, categorically speaking, this book is considered a memoir, though it is structured as almost anything but an autobiography. At one point early on, the author provides a definition for memoir "your present negotiating with versions of your past for a future you're willing to show up in." The italicization of this definition strongly suggests that she is not being ironic. The unspoken admonition is that one read the rest of this volume with the metaphor firmly in place as a sincerely expressed guidepost.
Ella Fitzgerald
This is a look back at the author's life as a history of the 20th century. It is thus populated with famous names and punctuated with pithy metaphorical capsule biographies. For instance, the author addresses Ella Fitzgerald by telling her that "your mind was a music laboratory, stocked with elements to be broken down and combined." She then goes to explicate how Fitzgerald's genius relied upon an idiosyncratic ability to manipulate melody through misdirection and take harmonies down expectedly discursive paths.
Minstrel Men
The minstrel man is a racist icon of the worst of American history. The author turns this idea on itself. "Everybody needs a minstrel man and Black women like me have finally won the right to ours. Oprah had Dr. Phil. Condi had George Bush. I have Bing Crosby." Traditionally, the minstrel man is a white male entertainer heavily caked in makeup to appear not as a Black man, but as the worst stereotypical image of how white people see a Black man. Aesthetically, the minstrel is a white man appropriating Black culture. The rules for minstrels follow this list in the book itself.
Superstars
The focus on popular singers is not limited to the 1940's. But the singers of color in the 21st century are noted for being an entirely different breed of celebrity. "Jump cut to 2017. Jay Z is a star and Beyoncé is a galaxy." The metaphors here are self-explanatory except for the issue of magnitude. The point of this aside is that as big as Ella Fitzgerald or Louis Armstrong might have been, their audience was always going to be limited as a result of the color of their skin.
