Here for It
Published in 2020, Here for It is R. Eric Thomas's debut essay collection, drawn in part from his popular Elle column. Thomas writes about growing up Black and gay in Baltimore, attending a mostly white prep school, his complicated relationship with the church, falling in love with the white pastor who became his husband, and the strangeness of becoming a viral internet voice during the Obama years and after. The pieces move between sharp pop culture commentary and tender personal memoir, often inside the same paragraph. Thomas is generous about his own anxieties, his envy of more conventional lives, and his ongoing search for belonging across identities that rarely line up neatly. The book is funny, but the comedy is in service of a real argument about who gets to feel at home in America, and on what terms.
What you might want to know about Here for It
The questions readers send us most often, answered without spoilers.
A comic essay collection about being Black, gay, Christian, and chronically online in America.
Both; the essays are loosely chronological and add up to a memoir of Thomas's life through his thirties.
No, the book stands on its own, though fans of his Elle work will find the same voice.
Here for It was written by R. Eric Thomas, published in 2021 by Ballantine Books.
Here for It is 304 pages in standard print editions, though page counts vary slightly between hardcover, paperback, and large-print formats.
At an average reading pace of about 250 words per minute, Here for It takes most readers 5 to 7 hours to finish.
Here for It is available in hardcover, paperback, ebook, and audiobook formats from Amazon, Bookshop.org, ThriftBooks, and most major bookstores.
