The Broken King - Michael Thomas
Season 11 Episode 15 | 2m 30sVideo has Closed Captions
Michael Thomas talks with Jeremy Finley about his book THE BROKEN KING.
Michael Thomas’ The Broken King is a powerful memoir exploring fathers and sons, race, trauma, and recovery. Through interwoven portraits of five men, including himself, Thomas traces his own breakdown and reckoning, crafting a deeply personal story about family, identity, and the fragile path back from loss and madness.
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A Word on Words is a local public television program presented by WNPT
The Broken King - Michael Thomas
Season 11 Episode 15 | 2m 30sVideo has Closed Captions
Michael Thomas’ The Broken King is a powerful memoir exploring fathers and sons, race, trauma, and recovery. Through interwoven portraits of five men, including himself, Thomas traces his own breakdown and reckoning, crafting a deeply personal story about family, identity, and the fragile path back from loss and madness.
Problems playing video? | Closed Captioning Feedback
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Learn Moreabout PBS online sponsorship(bell dings) (mellow music) (carriage whooshes) - I am Michael Thomas.
This is my memoir, "The Broken King."
It's about Black love, joy, and beauty.
Sometimes I think it's about trying, it's about trying to reconcile.
It's about inheritance.
And it's disastrous, it's beautiful, and it's about freedom and honoring that freedom.
- I am just so amazed at how honest you are in this memoir.
You do not shy away from your anger, your frustrations, even your shortcomings.
And I wondered why you decided to bare it all.
- I don't know what else to do, you know?
I think that is the job of the memoir, you know, or at least the memoir I want to write.
- The truth and the honesty of it is what we're all kind of seeking.
And sometimes we don't like the truth about ourselves, and it does take courage to write about that.
- I don't mean to be glib or coy, but the courage, I don't think it's an act of courage to write it.
For me, I'm not gonna say that for another writer trying to depict acts of courage.
My sons being my sons, (laughs) and even my father and my brother, you know, how depicting or showing how they responded in moments of terror or pain.
So I am risking very little in writing it, you know?
- Having this type of narrative of the truth about what it is like to be a Black man in America at this moment and in the decades before is so vital to future generations.
- I think it's about surviving with something intact.
And if you survive with something intact and then you have something, you owe something to the world, I think.
And so the onus is on me then to help.
I guess it's how it can be, you know?
How it could be if you can make it.
- If you can make it, and if you can survive it.
- Yeah.
- Which you have.
- I think I'm here, I mean, (laughs) you can corroborate my presence, right?
- I can corroborate your presence.
Michael, it was just a fantastic discussion.
- [Michael] Oh, thank you.
(mellow music) - Thank you so much.
- Thank you for having me.
I really appreciate it.
- And thank you for watching "A Word on Words."
I'm Jeremy Finley.
Remember, keep reading.
(bell dings) How did you arrive at "The Broken King?"
- [Michael] Well, it's from a T.S.
Eliot line from "Little Gidding."
"If you came at night like a broken king."
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A Word on Words is a local public television program presented by WNPT