We Will Rest!: The Art of Escape (Rest Is Resistance, 2)
“Rest is powerful, and subversive.”
Tricia Hersey’s We Will Rest!: The Art of Escape is the must-read follow up to the New York Times bestseller Rest Is Resistance.
Beautifully bound with pages cool and slick to the touch, We Will Rest! is precisely the type of book that will lure you to slip it into your robe pocket as you lay down on a couch in front of a fire or in a hammock in the sun. It’s enticing in its call to sit a spell and relax.
However, while the call to rest is genuine, do not be fooled into thinking that the book is peaceful. It is a call to action and a rejection of a social order that demands that we work until we drop. The parallels to the American chattel slavery system are made overt, and the author’s arguments are compelling. While we may not be actual property, the demands of the capitalist system compel work that is unnatural and unhealthy. The reader will likely be uncomfortable once this connection is made. That’s the objective. Discomfort informs action.
This metaphor to slavery is the underpinning of the work. Rest, the act of taking time for self, is framed as an act of escape. The book begins with reference to Harriet Tubman and near the end has an ode to Henry Box Brown. In between are exhortations for the reader to find their power by escaping a system that seeks to work us into our graves. Freedom is the goal, a goal which is shouted throughout the book.
A manifesto for rest, the book gives instructions for how to implement the author’s form of liberation theology. On the book’s tan pages, there is an “incomplete” list of ten steps to becoming an escape artist, like Tubman or Brown. The pink pages offer escape practices, suggesting ways to reimagine our lives to escape from the grind that is required of us.
George McCalman’s artwork is beautiful, reminiscent of wanted posters or notices for runaway slaves, yet also vibrant and modern in messaging. One of the most exceptional series of illustrations is on the green pages—a woman walking toward her bed, then sleeping. It’s a beautiful melding of theory and action.
The text is a combination of poetry, storytelling, and bold posters demanding action. If you don’t want to continue as fodder for the capitalist machine, you must rest. You must pull yourself from the system and take the time to simply be. Hersey believes that you have far more power than you believe. She presses you to use it.
“The systems will not offer you rest.” If you want off the roller coaster, you have to be brave.
This book is written for Black women. The author recognizes the power of Black women to create sacred spaces and communities that are dynamic and rooted in connection, both to ancestors and the future. While there are lessons for others in this book, it will, and perhaps should, make other readers feel as if they’re voyeurs in someone else’s space.
We Will Rest! suggests a view of wellness beyond the biological. It intimates that rest is divine, or at least nurtures our spiritual cores in addition to being something that our bodies require.
If there’s any criticism of this book to be made, it’s that the light tan print and tiny font on the chocolate-colored back cover make the text there impossible to read without magnification. But the value is what the author shares within the pages.
Allow yourself to be liberated. We Will Rest!: The Art of Escape is a wonderful addition to your holiday gift-giving list. Perhaps purchase a copy for the office gift exchange, especially if you drew a supervisor who routinely asks for too much. Rest is powerful, and subversive.