KCC Instructor Named National Book Award Finalist

Behind the Music, Behind Bars: KCC Instructor Named National Book Award Finalist

Kingsborough Community College instructor Colin Asher has spent much of his career moving between the classroom and the writing desk. Asher, whose full name is Colin Asher Bosio-Cady, has taught English in Kingsborough's CUNY Start program on and off since 2012. "Each time I've signed a book contract, I've resigned to write the book and then returned," he said.

His newest book, "The Midnight Special: The Secret Prison History of American Music," published by W.W. Norton on June 30, was recently named a finalist for the National Book Award for Nonfiction. The book was reviewed on the cover of The New York Times Book Review and named an NPR Book of the Day.

Asher describes the book as a music history that tells a story about how policing and incarceration have shaped the development of American music. "It's a narrative nonfiction book – so, a history told by employing storytelling techniques rather than an academic text," he said.

The idea started out smaller. Asher first planned to write about how the New York Police Department affected the growth of modern jazz. He was especially interested in a bebop album called “Sounds from Rikers Island” and thought he might write a whole book about it.

“The liner notes highlighted the challenges that modern jazz musicians faced like police harassment, addictions they couldn’t get treatments for, their reliance on the police to issue a ‘cabaret card’ required in order to work, and the hassle of moving in and out of jail and having their incomes interrupted,” he recalled.

His editor encouraged him to think bigger and write about how policing and prisons shaped a wider range of American music over a longer period of time.

“It was a good note,” Asher said.

The book follows the growth of the American prison system across a century. It starts on the Southern prison farms of the Jim Crow era. It moves through the mid-century drug wars and ends in today’s era of mass incarceration. Along the way, Asher traces a common thread through the blues, jazz, country music and hip-hop. He tells that story through the lives of five musicians: Lead Belly, Elmo Hope, Johnny Cash, Ike White and Tupac Shakur.

"The goal was to cover about 100 years of history, and to touch on several musical styles, and I had to do that in no more than 85,000 words," he said. "I easily could have written three times as much. The trick was to find the right subjects, people whose stories allowed me to discuss a broad swath of history while still keeping my story anchored to their experiences."

Asher hopes readers will think about how closely American culture and the prison system are tied together. "I'd like readers to come away with an understanding that incarcerated people who, as a society, we're often quick to dismiss as flawed or irredeemable, are the source of much of the music we cherish," he said. He hopes that understanding will lead "to a reevaluation of the way we think about incarceration in this country."

"The Midnight Special" is Asher's second book, and he said that makes it feel like a major accomplishment. "It's a hard thing to pour your heart into a book. It's harder still to decide to do it a second time," he said. "There are plenty of people out there who only ever write one book, and having a second book in print does make me feel more established as a writer."

The 77th National Book Awards ceremony will be livestreamed on Wednesday, Nov. 18 at 8 p.m. To register to watch the livestream, visit nationalbook.org/awards.

“The Midnight Special” can be purchased everywhere books are sold. For 20% off, buy it at wwnorton.com and enter code FINALIST20 at checkout. (Shipping and taxes still apply; U.S. orders only; Offer expires 11/30/26)