Category: Book Review

I vividly remember how captivated I was the first time I read Imani Perry’s writing. I picked up a copy of Breathe: A Letter to My Sons to read before she came to speak at our local book festival. I must have read the first page at least ten times because I couldn’t get enough of how she commanded language and ideas. I felt the same way while reading Black in Blues: How a Color Tells the Story of My People, which is both a meditation on the significance of the color blue to Black life and culture and a journey through history. I’ve often wondered why we typically study various histories in isolation instead of zooming out to see a global perspective, and Perry’s book shows exactly why it’s much more interesting and beneficial to look at history holistically. I was fascinated by how often the color blue figured prominently in Black history from early indigo trading to Blues music. I can only imagine the meticulous research that went into a project like this, and how it must have felt to travel through so many stories of both joy and heartbreak. As Perry states, “There is no single Black essence. There is no fundamental way of being Black,” and she shows that using various shades and iterations of the color blue. 

To me, the importance of this book is captured in one of the final chapters, “Seeing the Seventh Son,” where Perry writes about the importance of haunting the past: “We haunt the past to refuse to let it lie comfortably as it was. We give back to them [the ancestors] in return for the inheritances they have bestowed upon us.” As I continue to see teaching history and literature under attack and stories of marginalized groups banned or otherwise silenced, haunting the past is increasingly important for us all. Black in Blues shows the importance of beauty, art, music, and joy in the face of oppression, because that is how humanity survives. Perry writes that her goal was to “attend to what these artists teach, in sound and color, about the human condition,” and she does just that. She goes on to write that “[c]onjurers survive conquerors.” Though it is painful and disheartening, the current political climate in the United States is not new or unique. Black in Blues tells a story of Blackness through its link to the color blue that highlights both hope and pain and details a complex history that is vital to understanding the world today.

Thank you to NetGalley and Harper Collins/Ecco for the ARC.

I eagerly requested an ARC of Stag Dance because of how much I loved Detransition, Baby. As I usually do with books I intend to review, I purposefully avoided reading anything about it. In this case, knowing nothing forced me to think very critically, because from the very beginning it was clear that this was not what I had expected (in a good way), and that what I was reading was a showcase of skilled and powerful writing. At first, the novel and stories in Stag Dance may not seem to have much in common as they are each a completely different genre: dystopian speculative fiction, romance(?), horror, and western. From a writing standpoint, I was impressed by how Peters was able to own each genre and give a distinct voice to each narrator while grappling with complex conflicts and themes. 

What connects these seemingly disparate stories is an exploration of identity and what happens when people, for various reasons, are unable to fully express who they are meant to be. Not to mention how damaging it is when one cannot find love and acceptance. There’s also an underlying question of what it would look like to reimagine society so that people could live without hiding who they are and how liberating that would be for everyone. This is an extremely important question to consider as the trans community is increasingly under attack. What is the cost if we allow this? What will happen if we don’t stand in solidarity with the trans community and refuse to allow them to be dehumanized and denied human rights? How can so many people forget or ignore that dehumanization and silence and inaction have never ended up being on the right side of history?

Peters notes in the acknowledgements that these “were the stories I wrote to puzzle out, through genre, the inconvenient aspects of my neverending transition–otherwise known as ongoing trans life–aspects that didn’t seem to accord with slogans, ‘good’ politics, or the currently available language.” This makes me think of how real people are messy and no one fits perfectly into the socially constructed labels we’re expected to apply to ourselves. Yes, Stag Dance is excellent from a literary standpoint, but it also pushes readers to consider trans identity and how there’s no single way to define it (or any aspect of identity for that matter). There’s no universal experience, and I value Peters’s writing because, as many studies have shown, reading builds empathy. Stories like these may speak to those trying to understand trans identity and encourage more people to share their own truths. 

Stag Dance: A Novel & Stories by Torrey Peters will be published on March 11, 2025. Thank you to NetGalley and Random House for the ARC.