Happy Black History Month! Some of these are new, some of these are
old, all of them are undoubtedly going to be awesome when I finally read
them. They range from magical realism and science fiction to middle
grade and YA to romance and thriller. Let me know in the comments which
queer Black books are on your to-read list that you’re excited about!
My latest interviewee in the Interview With A Queer Reader series
recommended this book by a Black, queer, non-binary author as the one
that most represented her own experiences. Obviously I immediately added
it to my Goodreads. It’s a 2018 Stonewall Book Award Nominee for
Literature. Check out the description:
Odd-mannered, obsessive, withdrawn, Aster has little to
offer folks in the way of rebuttal when they call her ogre and freak.
She’s used to the names; she only wishes there was more truth to them.
If she were truly a monster, as they accuse, she’d be powerful enough to
tear down the walls around her until nothing remained of her world,
save for stories told around the cookfire.
Aster lives in the low-deck slums of the HSS Matilda, a space vessel organized much like the antebellum South. For generations, the Matilda
has ferried the last of humanity to a mythical Promised Land. On its
way, the ship’s leaders have imposed harsh moral restrictions and deep
indignities on dark-skinned sharecroppers like Aster, who they consider
to be less than human.
When the autopsy of Matilda‘s sovereign reveals a surprising
link between his death and her mother’s suicide some quarter-century
before, Aster retraces her mother’s footsteps. Embroiled in a grudge
with a brutal overseer and sowing the seeds of civil war, Aster learns
there may be a way off the ship if she’s willing to fight for it.
I had somehow known about this book for a while but didn’t know it had queer content until Danika at the Lesbrary
tipped me off. I’m looking forward to what sounds like amazing
world-building and a Black interjection into the white-dominated and
often imperialism erasing steampunk genre:
Everfair is a wonderful Neo-Victorian alternate
history novel that explores the question of what might have come of
Belgium’s disastrous colonization of the Congo if the native populations
had learned about steam technology a bit earlier. Fabian Socialists
from Great Britian join forces with African-American missionaries to
purchase land from the Belgian Congo’s “owner,” King Leopold II. This
land, named Everfair, is set aside as a safe haven, an imaginary Utopia
for native populations of the Congo as well as escaped slaves returning
from America and other places where African natives were being
mistreated.
Shawl’s speculative masterpiece manages to turn one of the worst
human rights disasters on record into a marvelous and exciting
exploration of the possibilities inherent in a turn of history. Everfair
is told from a multiplicity of voices: Africans, Europeans, East
Asians, and African Americans in complex relationships with one another,
in a compelling range of voices that have historically been silenced. Everfair
is not only a beautiful book but an educational and inspiring one that
will give the reader new insight into an often ignored period of
history.
I originally heard about this book from Autostraddle’s 65 Queer and Feminist Books to Read in 2018.
Jewelle Gomez says: “Krystal A. Smith writes of shape shifters, magical
herbalists, and women ripe for love. Her collection of stories marries
African American mysticism to speculative fiction announcing Smith’s
solid place in the next generation of Afro Futurists. With its sensuous
language, deftly drawn characters, and engaging narrative style, Two
Moons shines bright.” It’s out March 20th. Here’s the publisher’s blurb:
A splendid debut collection of speculative fiction that
traverses the connections between earth and the heavens, the living and
the spectral, human and animal.
In “Cosmic,” a former drug addict has a chance to redeem herself and
restore honor to her family’s name. In “Harvest,” a woman tasked with
providing for her community ponders her inability to bear live children.
In the title story, “Two Moons,” a young woman falls in love with the
moon, and is astonished by the moon’s response. In “What the Heart
Wants,” a rejected lover discovers that her physical and emotional
desires are incongruent with the organ pumping blood through her veins.
Sensitive, ethereal, humorous, and at times, heart-breaking, Smith’s
collection of speculative fiction signals the arrival of an
exceptionally talented writer with a promising career ahead of her.
I have been doing a new reading project in 2018 of trying a
new-to-me-genre focusing on romance. Weatherspoon is one of those
authors who has been recommended to me multiple times and I can’t
believe I haven’t read any of her books yet. I think this one (which I
featured on this Autostraddle list of books with masculine-of-centre characters and no sexual assault) sounds like an excellent one to start with, and it has two queer Black women leads!
Her sister’s bachelorette party is the highlight of a
miserable year for Alexis Chambers, but once her bridesmaid’s dress is
packed away, she’s back to coping with her life as a once popular
athlete and violinist turned loner and the focus of her parents’
disappointment. She isn’t expecting much from her freshman year of
college until she finds herself sharing a class with Treasure, the
gorgeous stripper from her sister’s party.
Trisha Hamilton has finally gotten the credits and the money together
to transfer to a four-year university. Between classes, studying, and
her job as a stripper, she has little time for a social life, until she
runs into the adorably shy baby butch from the club. Trisha can’t seem
to hide her feelings for Alexis, even when Trisha discovers what she has
been through, but will Alexis have the strength to be just as fearless
about their new love?
I bought a copy of this trans YA book off the author’s website
last year (even though my resolution in 2017 was to not buy books…)
when her books finally became available to ship to Canada, and I still
haven’t read it! What is wrong with me? It sounds amazing:
Arjana Rambeau, a trans teenager from Baltimore, carries
many secrets, one of which is she is a witch. Beginning to start a new
school, she finds herself at the center of an unwarranted conspiracy. As
she makes new friends, while attempting to maintain her old ones, she
must learn how to distinguish who she can trust, because it seems
everyone wants a piece of her and her growing powers.
Bembe Rambeau is a mystery, infamous amongst the magical community,
she has very few friends but a collection of enemies; enemies, who seem
to be attempting to remove not only her allies but her daughter as well;
threatening both her small empire and family’s legacy. Bembe must now
combat shifting loyalties while crafting an alliance with an enemy who
she once wished dead.
Brew follows the lives of a mother and daughter, one who thinks she
knows everything and another discovering what she knew isn’t true at
all.
Another book I can’t believe I haven’t read yet! I mean, it’s about a
Black bisexual Jewish teen girl! It won the Stonewall Book Award for
Children’s and Young Adult Literature in 2018 and it deals with themes
of mental illness and complicated family relationships:
When Suzette comes home to Los Angeles from her boarding
school in New England, she isn’t sure if she’ll ever want to go back.
L.A. is where her friends and family are (along with her crush, Emil).
And her stepbrother, Lionel, who has been diagnosed with bipolar
disorder, needs her emotional support.
But as she settles into her old life, Suzette finds herself falling
for someone new…the same girl her brother is in love with. When Lionel’s
disorder spirals out of control, Suzette is forced to confront her past
mistakes and find a way to help her brother before he hurts himself–or
worse.
There are so few middle grade books with LGBTQ2IA+ characters and
even fewer with queer characters of colour that this book has literally
been on my radar for YEARS. It’s out March 27th.
Prepare to be swept up by this exquisite novel that reminds us that grief and love can open the world in mystical ways.
Twelve-year-old Caroline is a Hurricane Child, born on Water Island
during a storm. Coming into this world during a hurricane is unlucky,
and Caroline has had her share of bad luck already. She’s hated by
everyone in her small school, she can see things that no one else can
see, and — worst of all — her mother left home one day and never came
back. With no friends and days filled with heartache, Caroline is
determined to find her mother. When a new student, Kalinda, arrives,
Caroline’s luck begins to turn around. Kalinda, a solemn girl from
Barbados with a special smile for everyone, seems to see the things
Caroline sees, too. Joined by their common gift, Kalinda agrees to help
Caroline look for her mother, starting with a mysterious lady dressed in
black. Soon, they discover the healing power of a close friendship
between girls. Debut author Kheryn Callender presents a cadenced work of
magical realism.
I listened to the audiobook of Gidney’s other collection of
speculative short stories and absolutely fell in love with his
imagination and language. (So much so that I included it on my Book Riot
list of 8 Amazing Audiobooks by Black Authors).
His stories sit in a really cool space of in between: not exactly
horror, not exactly realism, not exactly fantasy. Plus: look at the
beautiful cover. So obviously I am very excited to read his other book
of short stories, which was a 2015 finalist for the Lambda Award for
LGBT SF/F/Horror:
Magic is more than skin-deep. It hides in the folds of a
haunted quilt and illuminates the secret histories of Negro memorabilia.
Magic reveals the destiny of a great storyteller and emanates from a
sculpture by an obscure Harlem Renaissance artist. Magic lurks in the
basement of an inner-city apartment building and flourishes in a city
park. Magic is more than skin-deep; it shimmers in the ten stories in
this collection.
Another awesome queer Black book I own and have not read (shame on
me), this one is a little intimidating because it is such a thick
biography! But this is clearly because there is so much to tell about
Alice Walker’s incredible life. Now that I’ve finally read The Color Purple (another book it took me way too long to read) I feel like I’m ready to dive into this non-fiction book about the author:
Alice Walker’s life is remarkable not only because she
was the first black woman to win the Pulitzer Prize in fiction (the book
that won her that award, The Color Purple, has been translated
into nearly thirty languages and made into an Academy Award–nominated
film), but also because these accomplishments are merely highlights of a
luminous and varied career made from inauspicious beginnings in rural
Georgia. Drawing on extensive interviews and exhaustive research, Evelyn
C. White brings this life to light.
It’s not for lack of trying that I haven’t read this book yet, it’s
that it’s been hard to get a hold of so far, at least as far as access
through my local libraries is concerned. Maybe it’s time to get an
inter-library loan going or bite the bullet and buy it, because there’s
something about the description that just sounds so good (plus, the
black panther on the cover):
Dani Fenton thought her life was sorted. But when her
private and professional lives collide, she is forced to walk a
dangerous line and risk everything for love. At home Dani has a loving
partner with a young child who adores her. At work she is a powerful
broker in London’s vicious gangland, where she uses her influence to
negotiate deals between rival gangs at underground “meets”. Her
intuition has never failed her and her charisma has attracted a loyal
band of “soldiers” who would go to any lengths to please her. Life is
good until Susanna returns. Enigmatic, sexual, hot-tempered and fragile,
Susanna is irresistible to Dani, who soon finds herself in a spiral of
obsession and violence that threatens to devastate every aspect of her
life. Dani must choose between the love she has and the love she wants,
and she knows the wrong decision could prove fatal.
i REALLY want to read an unkindness of ghosts, and now i gotta buy hurricane child for the library!
You should read it! The worldbuilding is really great and it has some of the best trans representation I’ve seen. The main character is NB and another character with a significant role is a trans woman. The author makes their gender identites a significant part of who they are as characters and writes it so it makes sense in the culture. It’s not an afterthought and it’s not fetishized.
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