GLR January-February 2023

around the world, including white and Jewish left-wing ac tivists. Such gatherings proved invaluable to African-American writers like Langston Hughes who were struggling to find pub lishers at home in the early postwar days, and also to Black writ ers from Africa and the Caribbean who sought to establish international connections. Pool also published anthologies of Black writing in an effort to support anti-racist resistance move ments worldwide. Geerlings reports that Pool often recounted a memory of her days at the Dutch transit camp when she recited to her block the works of African-American poet Sterling Brown and taught fel low inmates to sing “I Know Moonrise,” an African-American spiritual. Pool recalled that singing this song became a nightly ritual on the block, a calming counterpoint to the sound of cat tle cars leaving for Auschwitz. Significantly Geerlings has cho sen a lyric from this song as the title of the book, suggesting both Rosey Pool’s affiliation with Black life and longstanding dedication to the causes of social justice. The epigraph of the biography, however, may be unsettling to some readers. Referring to the Yellow Star that she was

forced to wear during the Nazi era, Geerlings quotes Pool: “That piece of yellow cotton became my black skin.” The false equiv alency that this statement contains points to Rosey Pool’s per sonal and analytical blind spots. Indeed as the narrative progresses, some of her activities and attitudes come to seem less and less appealing. Geerlings notes her mendacity early on. Writing of “the lies she told throughout her life,” she speculates sympathetically: “Whether it was lying about not having carved things in her school desk or prevaricating about attending university or striv ing to improve herself, Pool was always trying to be somebody other than who she was.” Any lingering compassion may di minish when we learn that Pool relied on her social connections and fabricated educational credentials to secure a Fulbright to the U.S. in 1959 and 1960, at a time when the film The Diary of Anne Frank was popular in the U.S. The circumstances surrounding this trip show her in an even more uncomplimentary light. While Pool had originally planned to discuss the similarities between Nazi Germany and the Jim Crow South, she quickly switched gears and began capitalizing

B R I E F S The book is by no means limited to the

Salim escapes, but at a terrible cost. The second and third sections feel more like science fiction than the first, as the boys join a newly built high-tech city in Saudi Arabia and stage an elaborate break-in for a dramatic confrontation. Although intelli gently written, all the literary and philo sophical references vanish in the novel’s critique of capitalism, use of magical realism, and forays into the techno thriller and revenge genres. JAZZED by Jill Dearman Vine Leaves Press. 275 pages, $17.99 Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb’s murder of fourteen-year-old Bobby Franks, once known as the “crime of the century,” riveted the nation in 1924. Jazzed is a transgressive, sapphic retelling of Leopold and Loeb fea turing Wilhelmina “Will” Reinhart and Dorothy “Dolly” Raab as wealthy musical prodigies living in Jazz Age New York. Jazzed uses a queer feminist lens to create a fast-paced story with strong female leads. The novel is divided into four parts chroni cling the timeline of the crime and is told through their alternating points-of-view. Young and rich, Will and Dolly are two geniuses about to enter their first year at Barnard College. Will, whose mind is mainly occupied by ornithology, quantum physics, and music, finds Dolly beautiful and exciting because her life is filled with jazz, Harlem nightlife, and the rebellious lifestyle of a flapper. As roommates at C HARLES G REEN

A SHORT HISTORY OF QUEER WOMEN by Kirsty Loehr Oneworld Publications. 208 pages, $15.99 Reading A Short History of Queer Women by Kirsty Loehr is like being strapped on a rocket hurtling through time. From specu lating on the sexual practices of prehistoric women to commenting on 2021 TV fare, Loehr offers her take on the presence of les bians throughout history in a brief, small format book. It’s a raucous ride, and it dispels the tired question posed by Loehr herself: Why can’t lesbians be funny? Of course, much of lesbian history isn’t funny at all, but this is not a reverent work, nor an academic one. You won’t find an index or footnote here. A bit like a lesbian Who’s Who , all the fa mous names make an appearance. Sappho, the Amazons, the pirate Anne Bonny, Queen Anne, the Ladies of Llangolen, and Ellen DeGeneres are all there. Particular attention is paid to three well-known Lotharias of their day: Anne Lister, Natalie Clifford Bar ney, and Vita Sackville-West. These famous lovers lived unconventional lives in which they expressed their sexuality freely, leav ing broken hearts behind but forever ex panding the way lesbians could operate in society. They were revolutionaries, but they were also members of the privileged class, which allowed them to get away with things that scullery maids could not. Another fa mous lesbian lover, Tallulah Bankhead, had the best line in the book. On being intro duced to someone, she said: “Hello, I’m a lesbian. What do you do?”

history of white women. Loehr has re searched Asian, Middle Eastern, and African lesbians and gives an account of Black lesbian Americans during the era of Second Wave Feminism in the 1970s. It all combines into a quick read that is funny, informative, surprising, and en tirely worth the effort.

A NNE L AUGHLIN

BROTHER ALIVE by Zain Khalid Grove Press. 338 pages, $26.

Brother Alive is an ambitious debut novel about three adopted brothers growing up on Staten Island. Youssef, Dayo, and Iseul are raised by Salim, an imam who keeps the boys at an emotional distance, never giving them hugs or affection. As adults, they learn why. Youssef follows Salim one night and discovers the man with whom the imam spends his evenings. Later, the boys reunite to take revenge on the people who persecuted their parents. Adding a magical realist touch is Brother, a shape-shifting creature who is gay—and visible only to Youssef. Youssef “feeds” Brother knowl edge and memories. Perhaps serving as a counterpart to the gay but sexless Youssef, Brother’s origins are explained later in the novel. Salim narrates the second section as a letter to the boys, describing his life in Saudi Arabia and his relationship with the boys’ parents. He also reveals his involve ment in a shadowy, vaguely sinister group.

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