Another Word for Love: A Memoir

4.6 4.6 out of 5 stars | 47 ratings

Price: 13.12

Last update: 01-26-2025


About this item

Kirkus Prize Finalist, 2024

Long-listed, Time Magazine Best Books of the Year, 2024

This program is read by the author.

“Carvell Wallace narrates his beautiful memoir with poignant urgency-- and a whole lot of love…His voice, like his prose, has a poetic cadence. At times, his narration seems to fly, reaching higher and higher before culminating in an emotional crescendo.”—AudioFile

A transformative memoir that reimagines the conventions of love and posits a radical vision for healing.

In Another Word for Love, Carvell Wallace excavates layers of his own history, situated in the struggles and beauty of growing up Black and queer in America.

Wallace is an award-winning journalist who has built his career on writing unforgettable profiles, bringing a provocative and engaged sensitivity to his subjects. Now he turns the focus on himself, examining his own life and the circumstances that frame it—to make sense of seeking refuge from homelessness with a young single mother, living in a ghostly white Pennsylvania town, becoming a partner and parent, raising two teenagers in what feels like a collapsing world.

With courage, vulnerability, and a remarkable expansiveness of spirit—not to mention a thrilling, and unrivaled, storytelling verve—Another Word for Love makes an irresistible case for life, healing, the fullness of our humanity, and, of course, love. It could be called a theory of life itself—a theory of being that will leave you open to the wonder of the world.

A Macmillan Audio production from Farrar, Straus and Giroux.


Top reviews from the United States

  • MHB
    5.0 out of 5 stars Heartfelt and meticulously written.
    Reviewed in the United States on July 7, 2024
    I was lost in this book for days. Just a lovely reflection on what love is. Carvell’s story is captivating and relatable. Well worth your time.
  • Charlee
    5.0 out of 5 stars Interesting and a quick read
    Reviewed in the United States on July 8, 2024
    I liked the way it is presented. Short chapters, interesting and well written.
  • Audrey
    4.0 out of 5 stars Essays on love
    Reviewed in the United States on May 14, 2024
    A memoir as a series of essays, themed around the experience of love in all forms—familial love as a child, a partner, and a parent, friendship, romantic love, sex, self love, loss and grief. Occasionally meandering, ultimately quite beautiful.
  • D.
    5.0 out of 5 stars brilliant and beautiful
    Reviewed in the United States on December 20, 2024
    Pre-Read notes:

    I love memoirs. I spent some time homeless in my early adulthood, so I was curious about this story.

    Final Review

    "I guess that’s what time does, changes the meaning of things. I try not to bother too much about figuring out which truth is the truest. A lot of things, I have learned, can be true at once." p.5

    Review summary and recommendations:

    I was immediately drawn to the description for this memoir, as I'm always interested in narratives from people who have spent time in homelessness. I'm always interested to know how people escape this circumstance. I find this kind of content challenging, especially when the story belongs to a homeless kid, as I found here.

    I love this book for more reasons than just this one, though I did connect very honestly to this part of Wallace's narrative. It's also beautifully written, and Wallace explores important themes from his childhood, such as how masculinity is socialized in young boys, and being poor among a culture of people who have much more than you do.

    I recommend this book to readers who enjoy memoir, appreciate philosophy, and are drawn to stories about people who come from terrible childhoods redeeming themselves and their lives.

    "When your oppression is communal, your liberation must be as well." p151

    Reading Notes

    Three (or more) things I loved:

    1. "Maybe it was less than a year but it felt like a long time, full of endings and tiny deaths." p3 This is what a year of homelessness felt to me, at 19. I never speak about that time in my life but this makes me feel seen.

    2. In the chapter entitled "The Razors," the author uses repetition to brilliant effect. But also, trigger warning for violence against women and children, and child SA.

    3. "Giving pain was how you proved your right to exist, to be left alone, to be granted full humanity." p22 From a passage about how the author and the other boys around him were socialized. It's a profound statement about how we teach masculinity to young kids.

    4. "Everyone in my neighborhood was white. Everyone in all my classes and on my school bus was white. Everyone in my home was white. I was stranded. It was like living on the moon." p27 Wonderful description, and such an important statement.

    Rating: ????????❤️‍???????????? /5 loves and other words for it
    Recommend? Yes!
    Finished: Dec 13 '24
    Format: digital arc, NetGalley; digital, Libby
    Read this book if you like:
    ???? memoir
    ???? stories of difficult childhoods
    ???? stories about homelessness
    ???? redemption stories

    Thank you to the author Carvell Wallace, publishers Farrar, Straus and Giroux, and NetGalley for an advance digital copy of ANOTHER WORD FOR LOVE. All views are mine.
    ---------------
  • Laureisen
    5.0 out of 5 stars An Evocative and Emotional Memoir
    Reviewed in the United States on July 5, 2024
    What I loved about this writer’s memoir is that his prose is often poetic. And he raises as many questions as he answers. The review of his life is incomplete, as he keeps chewing on both small and big pieces, finding more flavor to savor.

    This isn’t written in a literal, concrete, time stamped manner, typical of life stories. There are elements of spirituality, philosophy and dream, that made for an interesting and unusual read.
  • Noah
    5.0 out of 5 stars Magnificent
    Reviewed in the United States on June 16, 2024
    Beautiful prose, well written and transformative! Word come to live and in living colour. Sexual content was graphic but it helped understand the writer’s imperfect yet beautiful life.
  • Lisa
    5.0 out of 5 stars Gorgeous writing
    Reviewed in the United States on May 29, 2024
    I came across Mr. Wallace when he co-hosted Slate’s parenting podcast years ago. His contributions were always so thoughtful & his commentary often required a re-listen and deeper self-reflection. Whenever he writes anything, I know it’s going to be beautiful & thought provoking.

    This book is in a class of its own. Every essay is poetry. He uses repetition in some very inventive ways. And he is funny! Some of his honesty will break your heart. Mr. Wallace doesn’t stop trying to grow as a human and an artist and this latest contribution will inspire the same in readers.

    Thank you, Mr. Wallace, for your contributions. Please keep making your art.
  • Happy across the river
    5.0 out of 5 stars Beautiful
    Reviewed in the United States on May 28, 2024
    Mr. Wallace bares his soul and speaks his truth and we are all better for it. Thank you for this magnificent work

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