American Trickery: Volume I

[Paperback edition] Black men. A hotel. The fight to reclaim space and personal power in America. A man overrun by the demands of life in America questions whether he's been tricked all along. After walking away from his corporate success and the illusion of upward mobility, he returns to his first love — building the Southernaire Hotel — hoping to reclaim purpose and personal power.​But dreams, like America, are rarely what they seem.The Southernaire is no ordinary hotel. It's a living portrait of Black manhood — filled with unpredictable guests with secrets too dark for daylight, the quiet heroism of its all-Black male staff, and the unrelenting complexities of Demetrius's own unraveling identity. Amid the chaos, he is forced to confront the painful truth: the America he thought he was escaping is rooted within himself. Together, the men face race, religion, work, and personhood — not just in theory, but in practice. As the walls of the hotel rise, so do the truths. Part memoir, part lyrical fiction, American Trickery at the Southernaire Hotel is a powerful debut about finding clarity in chaos and reclaiming personal power when the country attempts to confuse you. It's about what happens when a man dares to reserve space not just in America, but in his own story and how he learns to pass that power along to others.​He thought he was building a hotel. Turns out, it was rebuilding him.