“[An] entirely mesmerizing memoir . . . with a virtuosic command of language and an eagle eye for punishing detail, Thomas has rendered beautifully an excruciating existence from which it is impossible to turn away . . . And yet, it would be misleading to end with the impression that The Broken King is not a hopeful story. Its very existence, the fact that its harrowing events were witnessed and recorded, amounts to an extraordinary display of human will and resilience.”

“A prize-winning writer’s anguish . . . Thomas believes that one way to keep “from falling into darkness” is to try “to make something beautiful.” This book hits the mark . . . A powerful memoir of childhood trauma, literary success, and mental illness.”

“Novelist Thomas (Man Gone Down) makes his nonfiction debut with a haunting and poetic profile of the men in his family . . . Thomas’s memories and reflections accumulate into a poignant and potent mosaic, chronicling his attempts to overcome family dysfunction and fumble his way toward stability. It’s a stirring achievement.”

“Powerful and moving…An impressive success… [Thomas] knows how the odds are stacked in America. He knows the unlikelihood of successful black fatherhood. He knows that things are set up to keep the Other poor and the poor in their place. More than anything else, he knows how little but also—fortunately—how much it can take to bring a man down.”

“Like the characters of Ralph Ellison, James Baldwin and Lorraine Hansberry, whom [Thomas] references throughout the novel with recognizable phrases, themes and quotes, [the] unnamed narrator is a black man concerned with identity in a decidedly white America…. Thomas imbues the story with an intense pace and urgency as he explores masculinity, humanity and where the narrator – a self-proclaimed ‘social experiment’ – fits in…. Thomas, a fine writer, can produce beautiful prose…. His descriptions of the make-do jobs held by the protagonist’s mother while he was growing up and of a friend’s beatings at the hands of his father are vivid, graphic and poignant enough to leave a knot in the reader’s stomach…. In the end, the novel itself is rather like its main character: a brilliant and frustrating social experiment that is still quite worthy of our attention.”