In Twisted: My Dreadlock Chronicles, professor and author Bert Ashe
delivers a witty, fascinating, and unprecedented account of black male
identity as seen through our culture's perceptions of hair. It is a
deeply personal story that weaves together the cultural and political
history of dreadlocks with Ashe's own midlife journey to lock his hair.
Ashe is a fresh, new voice that addresses the importance of black hair
in the 20th and 21st centuries through an accessible, humorous, and
literary style sure to engage a wide variety of listeners.
After leading a far-too-conventional life for 40 years, Ashe began a
long, arduous, uncertain process of locking his own hair in an attempt
to step out of American convention. Black hair, after all, matters. Few
Americans are subject to snap judgments like those in the
African-American community, and fewer communities face such loaded
criticism about their appearances, in particular their hair. Twisted:
My Dreadlock Chronicles makes the argument that the story of dreadlocks
in America can't be told except in front of the backdrop of black hair
in America.
Ask most Americans about dreadlocks and they immediately conjure a
picture of Bob Marley: onstage, midsong, dreads splayed. When most
Americans see dreadlocks, a range of assumptions quickly follow: He's
Jamaican, he's Rasta, he plays reggae; he stinks, he smokes, he deals;
he's bohemian, he's creative, he's countercultural. Few styles in
America have more symbolism and generate more conflicting views than
dreadlocks. To "read" dreadlocks is to take the cultural pulse of
America. To listen to Twisted: My Dreadlock Chronicles is to
understand a larger story about the truths and biases present in how we
perceive ourselves and others. Ashe's riveting and intimate work, a
genuine first of its kind, will be a seminal work for years to come.
