"The biography of today recoils from stuffing its subject into a straitjacket of interpretation. Instead we find an emphasis on the fragility and provisionality of identity, on performance, on motive being mysterious and many-tentacled. 'Baldwin seemed to be composed of carefully crafted personae, woven like armor,' Zaborowska writes. (Such tact in that 'seemed.')"--Parul Sehgal, New York Times Magazine "Baldwin authority Zaborowska's gracefully impassioned biography of the queer author and activist's life and legacy. A creatively conceived appreciation for a decorated life and its far-flung influences on race, queer culture, and art."-- Kirkus Reviews "Zaborowska serves as one of our greatest witnesses in the academy to Baldwin's legacy. Without losing any of her usual incisive analysis, Zaborowska takes a very personal approach.

The reader has a full sense of both witness and subject in conversation, which heightens the reader's experience. Frankly, more scholarship should be like this."-- Choice "An admirable work, balanced and intelligent."--Brooke Allen, Hudson Review "A major contribution to freedom loving people everywhere."--George Lipsitz, author of The Danger Zone Is Everywhere: How Housing Discrimination Harms Health and Steals Wealth "Written with élan by a leading scholar on the life and work of James Baldwin, Zaborowska's fresh study is a gripping portrait of one of the twentieth century's most insightful writers."--Douglas Field, author of Walking in the Dark "Zaborowska not only produces one of the richest pictures of James Baldwin's personal and professional lives ever written, but also, she boldly dives into the debates surrounding the ways that images of James (Jimmy) continue to be both used--and abused."--Robert F. Reid-Pharr, New York University.