Winner of the Discovery Prize for Nonfiction, Writers' League of Texas
Finalist for the CLMP Firecracker Award in Creative Nonfiction
"A tour-de-force collection of essays on issues surrounding race, education, and American history." -Kirkus Reviews (starred)
"Profound insights into the current reality of America, taking on race, inequality, violence, and education. An impressive debut from an exciting new voice!" -Daryl Farmer, author of Where We Land: Stories and Bicycling Beyond the Divide
"Sean Enfield shares tales as varied as finding connections in churches and moshpits as well as teaching at a Muslim middle school...He tells us facts we should know and reminds us of truths we shouldn't forget. " -Sean Hill, author of Dangerous Goods and Blood Ties & Brown Liquor
"Driven by an empathic imagination and formal invention, Holy American Burnout! is a book of marked complexity and honesty." -Sara Eliza Johnson, author of Vapor and Bone Map
Sean Enfield delves into the great American condition: burnout.
Threading his experiences both as a Texan student and later as a first-year teacher of predominately Muslim students at a Texas middle school, Holy American Burnout! weaves personal essay and cultural critique into the historical fabric of Black and bi-racial identity.
Enfield intersects examinations of which voices are granted legitimacy by virtue of school curriculum, the complex relationship between basketball and education for Black and brown students, his students' burgeoning political consciousness during the 2016 presidential campaign, and cultural figures ranging from Kendrick Lamar to Hamlet.
These classroom narratives weave around Enfield's own formative experiences contending with a conflicted bi-racial family lineage, reenacting the Middle Passage as the only Black student in his 7th grade history class, and moshing in both Christian and secular hardcore pits.
As Enfield wrestles with the physical, mental, and emotional burdens that American society places on educators, students, and all relatively conscious minorities in this country, he reaches for an education that better navigates our burnt-out empire.
