"Rich in identity," as he described himself, Randall Kenan wrote widely and profoundly about what it meant to be Black, gay, and Southern. He confessed himself "elusive"--yet revealed himself in astonishing prose--memories of his three mothers (especially Mama, his great-aunt); recollections of his boyhood fear of snakes and his rapture in books; his sensual evocations of tobacco picking and hogkilling, butterbeans and scuppernongs, of the eastern...