Saeed Jones’s How We Fight for Our Lives is at once a memoir about growing up queer in the South, an exposé of the economic trauma placed upon a single mother and her child, and an excoriation of the rank hypocrisy of racism among sexual and gender minorities in America. With clear-eyed prose capable of transcending the lyric narrative to achieve poetry — “Tears don’t always fall; sometimes they rip through you” — Jones has crafted a literary wonder that transcends nonfiction and harnesses of the power of the first person to catch lightning in a moment and speak for the forgotten citizen.
How We Fight for Our Lives, by Saeed Jones. Published by Simon and Schuster. The editor is Zachary Knoll and the agent is Charlotte Sheedy. How We Fight for Our Lives is a finalist for the Publishing Triangle’s Randy Shilts Award for Gay Nonfiction; the winner will be announced on April 30.