How We Fight for Our Lives: A Memoir
One of the best books of the year as selected by The New York Times; The Washington Post; NPR; Time; The New Yorker; O, The Oprah Magazine; Harper's Bazaar; Elle; BuzzFeed; Goodreads; and many more.
"People don't just happen," writes Saeed Jones. "We sacrifice former versions of ourselves. We sacrifice the people who dared to raise us. The 'I' it seems doesn't exist until we are able to say, 'I am no longer yours.'"
Haunted and haunting, How We Fight for Our Lives is a stunning coming-of-age memoir about a young, black, gay man from the South as he fights to carve out a place for himself, within his family, within his country, within his own hopes, desires, and fears. Through a series of vignettes that chart a course across the American landscape, Jones draws readers into his boyhood and adolescence--into tumultuous relationships with his family, into passing flings with lovers, friends, and strangers. Each piece builds into a larger examination of race and queerness, power and vulnerability, love and grief: a portrait of what we all do for one another--and to one another--as we fight to become ourselves.
An award-winning poet, Jones has developed a style that's as beautiful as it is powerful--a voice that's by turns a river, a blues, and a nightscape set ablaze. How We Fight for Our Lives is a one-of-a-kind memoir and a book that cements Saeed Jones as an essential writer for our time.
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Community Reviews
What’s it about?
This memoir tackles some tough subject matter. Saeed Jones is a gay, African-American man who was raised in Texas by a single mother. Mr. Jones memoir is an honest, frank look back at his life. He does not sugar coat his story- so be ready when you pick up his book.
What did it make me think about?
I have often thought that this may be the best time in history to come out as a gay man. However, after reading this book, I am not saying that anymore. Saeed Jones makes you understand how truly difficult it is to be black and gay in America- even today. "You never forget your first "faggot'. Because the memory, in its way, makes you. It becomes the spine for the body of anxieties and insecurities that will follow, something to hang all that meat on. Before you were scrawny; now you're scrawny because you're a faggot. Before you were just bookish; now you're bookish because you're a faggot.
Soon, bullies won't even have to say the word. Nor will friends, as they start to sit at different lunch tables without explanation. There will already be a voice in your head whispering 'faggot' for them."
Should I read it?
Saeed Jones is an award winning poet and the way he uses language is just beautiful. "Just as some cultures have a hundred words for 'snow', there should be a hundred words in our language for all the ways a black boy can lie awake at night." I found this one of the most compelling memoirs I have ever read. It is raw, honest, and sometimes more graphic than readers might be comfortable with. I urge you to read this book anyway. Maybe it will change the way you look at someone that is different from yourself.
Quote-
"However many masks we invent and deploy, in the end, we cannot control what other people see when they look at us."
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