The Only Way Out: The Racial and Sexual Performance of Escape (forthcoming from Duke University Press) explores the American fascination with the escape story. Where stories are always shaped in their telling and re-telling, I argue for an understanding of stories of escape as deeply related to questions of the utterance and its uptake. Grounded in black studies, queer theory and performance studies, this book discusses escape as both a white fantasy desire for radicality, as well as a radical Black practice that challenges the domination of the Englightenment genre of the human/man. Starting with the (anti)slave escape story of Henry “Box” Brown (c.1815-97) as it is presently performed, The Only Way Out traces the escapist-affective work of speculative fiction, the sonic misalignment of white speech, and images of queer public sensuality and pleasure. Taking an unexpected route through a range of artworks escape emerges as a “genre of change,” not simply a story of individual mobility, but one of entanglement and coalition.