A mix of the origin story behind the popular podcast Ear Hustle as well as essays and follow ups from episodes of the show. A menagerie of sorts from Poor and Woods.
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I admittedly do not listen to Ear Hustle much. I’ve heard a few episodes and liked them, but the show is not in my rotation. This book was a miss for me. It is clearly directed toward listeners of the podcast. I wasn’t invested in the authors going in, and they didn’t convince me to care about them through the course of the book. I’m sure if I knew the hosts and the show I would’ve appreciated the whole thing more, but unfortunately as a stand alone it wasn’t for me.
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The sections I liked were the vignettes where we got to read about folks being touched by prison (incarcerated people, formerly incarcerated people, loved ones of people being jailed etc.) but there wasn’t enough of that. Also overall the book felt choppy, the editor didn’t seem to have a handle on what this book was trying to be/say.
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The other big thing that came up for me was how shockingly pro-prison the book was. The theme of reform coming as a result of incarceration felt threaded throughout. The idea that caging people helps them when we know that’s not true on a large scale was wild to read. It was a little jarring, especially from a book/brand that centers people who have been incarcerated. The nuance was missing and the takeaway felt irresponsible.

This Is Ear Hustle relates some of the daily realities and the background stories of inmates in San Quentin written by the duo responsible for the podcast, Nigel Poor and Earlonne Woods. Due out 12th Oct 2021 from Crown Publishing, it's 304 pages and will be available in hardcover, audio, and ebook formats. It's worth noting that the ebook format has a handy interactive table of contents as well as interactive links throughout. I've really become enamored of ebooks with interactive formats lately; it makes it so easy to find information with the search function.

I was familiar with the Ear Hustle podcast, but not a regular listener, and even so, I found myself immediately drawn in and invested in the characters and stories related here. The backgrounds are varied, as are the outlooks and outcomes for the men, but they're all absolutely authentic and often so sad. There's a lot of humor and hope as well, so it's not only bleak and dark, but it was really reading about the lies and distortions from the court system and the law officers that felt like a gut punch to me.

I spent much of this read really viscerally angry. I think it's an important book, but it wasn't always a fun read.

Five stars. This is a superlative book and highly recommended for library and school acquisition, as a support/resource text for social sciences, and for readers of nonfiction.

Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes.