Electric Literature is pleased to reveal the cover for the memoir Pretty by KB Brookins, which will be published by Alfred A. Knopf on May 28, 2024. Preorder the book here.
By a prize-winning, young Black trans writer of outsized talent, a fierce and disciplined memoir about queerness, masculinity, and race.
Even as it shines light on the beauty and toxicity of Black masculinity from a transgender perspective—the tropes, the presumptions—Pretty is as much a powerful and tender love letter as it is a call for change.
“I should be able to define myself, but I am not. Not by any governmental or cultural body,” KB Brookins writes. “Every day, I negotiate the space between who I am, how I’m perceived, and what I need to unlearn. People have assumed things about me, and I can’t change that. Every day, I am assumed to be a Black American man, though my ID says ‘female,’ and my heart says neither of the sort. What does it mean—to be a girl-turned-man when you’re something else entirely?”
Informed by Brookins’s personal experiences growing up in Texas, those of other Black transgender masculine people, Black queer studies, and cultural criticism, Pretty is concerned with the marginalization suffered by a unique American constituency—whose condition is a world apart from that of cisgender, non-Black, and non-masculine people. Here is a memoir (a bildungsroman of sorts) about coming to terms with instantly and always being perceived as “other.”
Here is the cover, designed by Chip Kidd, artwork by Anita Kunz.
Author KB Brookins: “This book is unlike any other project I’ve attempted, so I wanted to make a necessary departure from my first two books’ covers (How To Identify Yourself With a Wound and Freedom House). When developing cover ideas, I thought to myself ‘how has birthing this book felt?’, and I kept thinking about breath, stillness, and balance—all things required to get to emotional clarity and own/reflect on the past. I also thought about how nerve-wracking it is to not hide behind a ‘character’ that isn’t me, and how sweaty I get when out in the Texas sun. Yellow as a background kept calling to me. I also thought about this book being my most vulnerable thing, and thought there was nothing more vulnerable to me than having a version of myself—with my skin showing—on the cover. So I took some pictures and sent those (along with summations of three ideas) to Chip and Anita, who knocked it out of the park. After some necessary input from Erroll McDonald (my editor), the idea that stuck is the one that felt most true and in alignment with the feeling that I hope the book evokes in readers—calm that has come from a Black, trans, beautifully chaotic lifetime of searching for peace. I feel so honored to have this brave book coming into the world with Knopf, and hope that readers feel as moved by the book’s design and words as I do.”
Designer Chip Kidd: “The author basically art-directed this cover, which really helped. Once I read KB’s brief on what they were looking for, Anita instantly came to mind. Her lovely sensibility and skill was perfect for this astonishing, brave book. I just stayed out of her way and let her do the magic.”
Painter Anita Kunz: “I love painting portraits of extraordinary people and I was thrilled when Chip Kidd gave me this assignment. I read nothing but great reviews about KB Brookins and really feel that they are doing meaningful and important work. My main aim was to paint them in a beautiful and sensitive way, but I also wanted to add a tiny element of magic, so I added the tattoo bird which appears to come to life.”