Pulling the Chariot of the Sun, by Shane McCrae, is a memoir that isn’t, or at least, it doesn’t read like one to me. Nevertheless, my thanks go to NetGalley and Scribner for the invitation to read and review. This book is for sale now.

As a preschooler, McCrae’s maternal grandparents took him from his parents and raised him themselves. They persuaded his mother that he would have more advantages living with them, and they later, McCrae says, pressured his father into signing the paperwork that made their act legal. His father was African-American and his mother was Caucasian; this is why they kidnapped him, to get him away from his father and his identity. He was raised being told that he was not Black, but a mixed child who was half Mexican. They continued to tell this story even after his appearance made the truth obvious.

In telling his story, McCrae is unable to access many of the details, and so instead, he takes poetic license, buys it a car and a chauffeur, and rolls with it. He says that a particular thing happened when he was six, or possibly eight, maybe nine…and so on. McCrae is, in fact, an award-winning poet, but poetry isn’t what I signed on for here, and about halfway through I quit reading. I started several times and stopped several times, which is how I come to be reviewing a 2023 title in 2026. I finally faced the fact that I would never completely finish this thing.

Those that enjoy unconventional prose may be more attracted to this story than I am. It certainly sounds like a dreadful ordeal, and yet, not every awful story comes with a readable memoir, and for me at least, this one doesn’t.