We Were Eight Years in Power: An American Tragedy

Whether eliciting vigorous nodding or contentious head-shaking, Coates will make readers think deeply. Eight previously published essays—all in The Atlantic, where Coates is national correspondent—are compiled here with contextual (even apocryphal) introductions. While the eight years align with President Obama's terms, the title originates from the Reconstruction-era regret over severed racial progress; history repeats as Coates confronts and exposes—through a complex, sharpened racial lens—failure (including his own), white supremacy, "white innocence," reparations, incarceration, and, yes, Obama and his legacy. Coates's epilog proves especially chilling. Unfortunately, narrator Beresford Bennett's inappropriately exaggerated accents and his repeatedly affected pauses ("in three decades," for example, becomes "in, three, decades") are distracting annoyances best avoided.