[1][2][3][4][5] A Particular Kind of Black Man centers on the protagonist, Tunde Akinola, a Nigerian who lives in Utah with his family.

At home, Tunde's father, Akinola, struggles to keep up to his responsibility as he cannot get a good job due to his skin and race.

Folarin stated that the novel was supposed to be a semi-autobiography, but the story then began to expand and that the protagonist took a new phase rather than what he had imagined.

[1] Publishers Weekly described it as "[A] tender, cunning debut…" and that "Folarin pulls off the crafty trick of simultaneously bringing scenes to sharp life and undercutting their reliability, and evokes the complexities of life as a second-generation African-American in simple, vivid prose.

"[6] The New York Times described it as "Wild, vulnerable, lived…A study of the particulate self, the self as a constellation of moving parts.