I Don't Want to Die Poor

February 10, 2020
In an often funny, and sometimes moving, collection of essays, Arceneaux (I Can’t Date Jesus) explores a defining decision in his life: financing his Howard University communications degree through private student loans. While writing with humor and outrage about an education system that saddles students with debilitating levels of debt, he also discusses his brief time as a cast member of a reality TV show, his interest in the intricacies of health insurance, his romantic woes, and his search for gay porn he finds palatable. Those born before the Reagan administration might find themselves turning to Urban Dictionary to decipher some of his vocabulary, but readers across generational lines will appreciate the sensitivity with which Arceneaux examines his relationships to potential partners, or to his mother. In discussing her harsh disciplinary methods, he writes “I wouldn’t have wanted to touch you in any way that didn’t convey love and adoration, but I would never have stood there and let you strike me.” That quality—the love of a family that instills both gratitude and opposition—informs much of this book. By turns angry, hilarious, and introspective, this should strike a chord with millennials. Agent: Jim McCarthy, Dystel, Goderich, & Bourret.

February 15, 2020
The author of I Can't Date Jesus (2018) illuminates the "soul-crushing" financial hardships associated with the pursuit of higher education. Throughout his life, Arceneaux has struggled to free himself from the quicksand of student loan debt, and he acknowledges the impact this debt has had on many aspects of his life. During his senior year of high school, against his mother's wishes, Arceneaux set his heart on attending Howard University, a prestigious, historically black college and an attainable goal regardless of its tuition--at least according to a handsome college-fair representative with whom the author was smitten. Though realizing that initial loans and hard-won scholarships were not going to sustain his life and schooling in Washington, D.C., it wasn't enough to persuade him to return to his hometown of Houston. Remaining at Howard, the author racked up skyrocketing debt and soon became familiar with "rude private debt companies that hound the living hell out of you." As he writes, "the student loan industry is a barely regulated, predatory system, and with Donald Trump in the White House and those equally useless people in Congress, oversight of the industry is becoming nonexistent." Throughout these essays, Arceneaux passionately and candidly displays his political and racial awareness alongside sharp opinions on popular culture, marijuana use, Instagram, and depression. At times, the author's writing comes off as overindulgent and peevish, much more so than in his previous book. He's at his strongest when honestly evaluating the merciless harassment of robocalls and debt collectors who called him (and his mother, who co-signed many of his loans) early mornings and late nights while he struggled to stay afloat with writing gigs, some of which went unpaid for months. Anyone who struggles with debt and lives in what Arceneaux calls the "United States of Wage Stagnation and Economic Inequality" will relate to his predicament. A mixed bag of contemporary cultural insight and cautionary introspection on the universal issue of student loan debt.

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Starred review from March 1, 2020
Journalist and cultural critic Arceneaux (I Can't Date Jesus, 2018) offers another unflinchingly smart and wickedly funny collection of essays. The recurring theme throughout this book is the weight of Arceneaux's student loan debt: one piece tells of the audacious harassment of collector calls, another of the things Arceneaux could have enjoyed or accomplished had he not been tied to crippling monthly loan payments. He is candid about how the payments crushed him even after his first book landed him on the New York Times bestseller list. He debunks myths that tend to circulate on social media about individuals or couples who pay off the entirety of their student loan debt in inordinately short periods of time through hard work or simple scrimping. Arceneaux analyzes defining moments in culture that relate to his experience in such a financial stronghold, like the time billionaire Robert F. Smith paid off the student loan debt for an entire graduating class at Morehouse College. Among other topics, Arceneaux also relates stories of his upbringing as a young gay Black man in Houston. Arceneaux's writing is meticulously researched, gut-bustingly funny, and rich with niche cultural references ready to surprise and delight his audiences at every turn.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2020, American Library Association.)