How We Fight For Our Lives

by Saeed Jones Narrated by Saeed Jones

Overview

From award-winning poet Saeed Jones, How We Fight for Our Lives-winner of the Kirkus Prize and the Stonewall Book Award-is a “moving, bracingly honest memoir” (The New York Times Book Review) written at the crossroads of sex, race, and power.

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.

Editorial Reviews

OCTOBER 2019 - AudioFile

Listeners gain an intimate sense of Saeed Jones’s life through vignettes he presents with grace, compassion, and ferocity. His poetic memoir was born when he turned to writing to heal in the aftermath of an assault, and it centers around struggling as a young, black, and gay boy in the South. He and his mother were close, and when she dies, his anguish is palpable. Jones narrates unflinchingly through early curiosity about his sexuality, homophobia from family and community, and damaging sexual encounters. While he’s skilled at creating voices for everyone in his audiobook, certain voices—taunting slurs, crazed declarations of violence—are particularly chilling. Through his dynamic narration, listeners will feel as though they are sharing intense confidences and moments of joy with a close friend. E.E.C. © AudioFile 2019, Portland, Maine

From the Publisher

PRAISE FOR HOW WE FIGHT FOR OUR LIVES BY SAEED JONES

“This memoir is a rhapsody in the truest sense of the word, fragments of epic poetry woven together so skillfully, so tenderly, so brutally, that you will find yourself aching in the way only masterful writing can make a person ache. How We Fight for Our Lives is that rare book that will show you what it means to be needful, to be strong, to be gloriously human and fighting for your life.”
—ROXANE GAY, author of Hunger

“This book. Oh my goodness. It is everything everyone needs right now—both love song and battle cry, brilliant as fuck and at times, heartbreaking as hell. Every single living half-grown and grownup body needs to read this book. I’m shook. I’m changed.”
—JACQUELINE WOODSON, author of Another Brooklyn

“There will be little left to say, and so much left to make after the world experiences Saeed Jones's How We Fight for Our Lives. This is that rare piece of literary art that teaches us how to read and write on every page. It's so black. So queer. So subtextual, and amazingly so sincere. Saeed changes everything we thought we knew about memoir writing, narrative structure, and heart meat. All three are obliterated. All three are tended to over and over again. All three will never ever be the same after this book. It's really that good.”
—KIESE LAYMON, author of Heavy

“[This] memoir marks the emergence of a major literary voice…written with masterful control of both style and material.”
—KIRKUS REVIEWS, starred review

“Powerful…Jones is a remarkable, unflinching storyteller, and his book is a rewarding page-turner.”
—PUBLISHERS WEEKLY, starred review

"An unforgettable memoir that pulls you in and doesn’t let go until the very last page."
—LIBRARY JOURNAL, starred review

Jones’ explosive and poetic memoir traces his coming-of-age as a black, queer, and Southern man in vignettes that heartbreakingly and rigorously explore the beauty of love, the weight of trauma, and the power of resilience.
—ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY

"Jones' unabashed honesty and gift for self-aware humor will resonate with readers, especially those in search of a story that resembles their own."
—BOOKLIST

“Scorching…a commentary not only on what it takes to become truly and wholly oneself, but on race and LGBTQ identity, power and vulnerability, and how relationships can make and break us along the way.”
—GOOD HOUSEKEEPING

Product Details

BN ID:	2940171121747
Publisher:	Simon & Schuster
Publication date:	10/08/2019
Edition description:	Unabridged

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