Tracy Morgan:
I Am the New Black
(Spiegel & Grau/Random House), 2009
Selected Reviews
“It may be hard to believe, but I Am The New Black is truly compelling: especially if you were expecting the ghetto-fabulous Tracy Jordan, Morgan’s character from the hit NBC sitcom, 30 Rock, or the street corner Sam Walton, Hustleman, from Martin Lawrence’s storied ’90s television show, Martin, to be the centerpiece of some goofball hood tome. However, Tracy Morgan’s memoir is a complex self-portrait of an often brutal drip-painting; we observe him contextualize his abstract grief on each page.”
– Barry Michael Cooper, The Huffington Post
“Tracy Morgan is an extremely funny, naturally gifted comedian who has led a crazy life.”
– The Onion
A Word from Anthony
What a talent, what an oddball, and what a life he’s lived. I’d been a fan of Tracy’s brand of insanity since the moment Spoonie Luv tried to place a personal ad in the Village Voice on Crank Yankers. In our interviews Tracy was as free-associative and off the wall as the characters he plays, even when the talk turned serious. One day after telling me about the death of his father and at one point crying on my shoulder, he stopped our interview mid-sentence to tell me we were going to a Yankee game. He showed me where he used to work, in a booth outside the Stadium selling souvenirs, then we sat in Lorne Michael’s seats behind home plate, each of us waving at the friends who called when they saw us on TV. Another day Tracy said he felt like driving while we talked, so we took a spin through Harlem in his Bentley convertible. At every stoplight, Tracy hollered at girls, instructing them to tell me their phone number because I was his writer and was there to write things down. But what I’ll never forget about working with Tracy is that he called me “Ant Black” whenever we were together because, as he reminded me every time, I was white when I walked in and I’d be white when I left but while we were together I was black. Ant Black – it’s still the best nickname I’ve ever been given.
