A review by unladylike
Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments by Saidiya Hartman

5.0

Wow, this book is like nothing I've ever read. The key word in the title is Intimate. This is a work of Black feminist nonfiction, but the stories are told with the wetness of [b:The Secret Lives of Church Ladies|51582376|The Secret Lives of Church Ladies|Deesha Philyaw|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1596947858l/51582376._SY75_.jpg|76186482] rather than a more distanced, academic approach you might expect in critical race and gender theory. "Speculative history," as I believe it's called, might be fraught with pitfalls and likely receives a lot of criticism from other scholars, but I have long been convinced that it is absolutely necessary if we are to recognize the rich history of queerness, gender-fucking, and other aspects of people's behavior and identity throughout all human history. Too much has been told through the lens of the kyriarchy, and reparations need to be made in more than one way.

I was impressed with Saidiya Hartman's juicy, smoky, atmospheric prose style throughout the entire book, but it was the final "Book 3" dedicated largely to the late teenage years of Mabel Hampton that really took my breath away.