Two novels about the shit that can happen when you’re Black and gender nonconforming that also acknowledge the joy of living true to oneself.
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Didn’t Nobody Give a Shit What Happened to Carlotta by James Hannaham
It’s not easy returning to your home neighbourhood after a twenty-year absence to find it totally transformed. It’s not easy if you’ve spent those years being abused in prison. Life’s not easy anyway if you’re Black, poor and uneducated. It’s not easy when you’ve switched your pronouns from he to she.
So I was well disposed to give a shit what happened to Carlotta but I found I didn’t care as much as I’d hoped. I thought the vernacular would grow on me, but it didn’t. Indeed, I found Carlotta’s inner voice quite preachy and her antics on release day flipped between irritating and dull. But the novel comes highly praised by prestigious critics, so don’t let me put you off.
Thanks to publishers Europa editions for my review copy.
I wonder if my character, Diana, would have had more patience.
So I was well disposed to give a shit what happened to Carlotta but I found I didn’t care as much as I’d hoped. I thought the vernacular would grow on me, but it didn’t. Indeed, I found Carlotta’s inner voice quite preachy and her antics on release day flipped between irritating and dull. But the novel comes highly praised by prestigious critics, so don’t let me put you off.
Thanks to publishers Europa editions for my review copy.
I wonder if my character, Diana, would have had more patience.
Crosshairs by Catherine Hernandez
Kay is a drag queen in Toronto who has just got together with the love of his life. But homelessness and water shortages resulting from the climate crisis have hardened the hearts of the privileged and seen a political swing to the right. Those deemed Other are increasingly scapegoated until forced into hiding or government concentration camps, while the rest of the world looks on.
Whenever I thought surely not in peace-loving Canada I recalled the genocide and compulsory assimilation of the indigenous people. Whenever I thought the story wasn’t subtle enough I remembered the manufactured hostility to migrants here. Catherine Hernandez portrays an all-too-credible near-future dystopia and shows how – if we’re white, straight and nondisabled – compassion without action isn’t enough. A chilling read from Jacaranda books.
Whenever I thought surely not in peace-loving Canada I recalled the genocide and compulsory assimilation of the indigenous people. Whenever I thought the story wasn’t subtle enough I remembered the manufactured hostility to migrants here. Catherine Hernandez portrays an all-too-credible near-future dystopia and shows how – if we’re white, straight and nondisabled – compassion without action isn’t enough. A chilling read from Jacaranda books.
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