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. Jones tells the story of 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. Haunted and haunting, How We Fight for Our Lives is a stunning coming-of-age memoir. We hope that these ideas will enrich your conversation and increase your enjoyment of the book.

The suggested questions are intended to help your reading group find new and interesting angles and topics for your discussion. This reading group guide for How We Fight for Our Lives includes an introduction, discussion questions, and ideas for enhancing your book club. 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. 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.Īn 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. 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. The ‘I’ it seems doesn’t exist until we are able to say, ‘I am no longer yours.’” We sacrifice the people who dared to raise us.

“We sacrifice former versions of ourselves. “People don’t just happen,” writes Saeed Jones. 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. 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.

This is how we fight for our lives