Inciting Joy

Essays

By: Ross Gay

Narrated by: Ross Gay

From New York Times bestselling author Ross Gay comes an intimate and electrifying collection of essays about the joy that comes from connection.

“Brilliant. Inciting Joy is a book that will break your heart.” —Ada Limón, US poet laureate

“A gift that’s meant to be shared.” —The Washington Post

“It’s impossible to read [these essays] without feeling a shift in your awareness of joy and its unexpected possibilities.” ―The Boston Globe

In these gorgeously written and timely pieces, prizewinning poet and author Ross Gay considers the joy we incite when we care for each other, especially during life’s inevitable hardships. Throughout Inciting Joy, he explores how we can practice recognizing that connection, and also, crucially, how we can expand it.

Taking a clear-eyed look at injustice, political polarization, and the destruction of the natural world, Gay shows us how we might resist, how the study of joy might lead us to a wild, unpredictable, transgressive, and unboundaried solidarity. In fact, it just might help us survive.

In an era when divisive voices take up so much airspace, Inciting Joy offers a vital alternative: What might be possible if we turn our attention to what brings us together, to what we love?

Winner of the Hurston-Wright Legacy Award for Memoir/ Nonfiction

Boston Globe Best Books of 2022

Publishers Weekly Best Books of 2022

Shelf Awareness Best Adult Books of 2022

Salon.com Favorite Books of 2022

San Francisco Chronicle Favorite Books of 2022

BookPage Best Audiobooks of 2022

Critic reviews

“Stunning…Gay’s curiosity is present on every page and his precise yet playful prose sparkles…This resonant, vivid meditation shouldn’t be missed.”
—Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“This is instantly one of my favorite books ever. A wondering-aloud to which I will be returning often, and a brilliant manifesto making a case for joy as a thing which is as complex and rigorous as it is lovely and free. In that sneaky way Ross Gay has of lovingly disarming you before getting you to dwell in rooms of your heart you’d left vacant, Inciting Joy uses its titular emotion as a window into sorrow and rage, into gifts and loss, into the tricky business of being alive.”—Eve L. Ewing, author of Ghosts in The Schoolyard, Electric Arches, and Marvel Comic’s Ironheart series

"Ross Gay is as insightful and lyrical as an essayist as he is as a poet. His essays are as trenchant as they are moving, finding in the minutiae of life the grand themes of human existence.”
—Chris Hedges, Pulitzer Prize-winner and author of War is Force that Gives Us Meaning and America: The Farewell Tour

“With language that skips along like a game of hopscotch, Inciting Joy promises to deliver heart-swelling insights into life, death and the joyful necessity of interdependence.”
—BookPage (Most Anticipated Books of the Fall)

“Warm, candid … breezy and soulful… A pleasingly digressive and intimate memoir in essays."—Kirkus Reviews

“Ross Gay's work throws off so much light, I've often wondered if it was powered by a superior energy source. He has done something new and beautiful with Inciting Joy. He has sunk a bioluminescent depth-charge into our time, one which peers into the whole sea of experience around us: revealing it full of connection, mystery and a longing for relief.”—John Freeman, founder of Freeman’s literary magazine and editor of The Penguin Book of the Modern American Short Story

Joy and tears

In sharing the moments of his life where their seemed no joy to be had… only sorrow, I saw much alignment with my own experiences. Thank you Ross Gay for shining light on the other side.

Real humanity

It was perfect. I will read anything he writes. Beautiful thoughts and stories. Inspiring for years to come.

Delicate

Amazing….I know the connection between grief and joy. I’m so appreciative of how you presented everything with such great care.

absolute must listen

profoundly important and impactful, this will be a book I recommend to everyone i know

Outstanding

I could tell from the first chapter that I will listen to this book again and again. It is so beautifully crafted and filled with wisdom that is relatable no matter who you are. It made me pay attention to how I live my life and those in it. I cannot recommend it highly enough.