This is a collection of stories about queer Black women that is going to live in my head for a long time.
The opening story is about a young woman who has been raised on stories about violence and murder of Black girls like her at the hands of men. She’s consumed by this narrative, hypervigilant about her safety: “Her body no longer feels like hers. She is fat bright bait pierced against a hook, bobbing in the water, waiting for the inevitable. The sweat drips into the toilet bowl as she tries to heave out whatever it is inside her that turns men feral, makes them want to swallow her whole.” One night, she hears the coyotes calling and imagines a new place in the world for herself…
Some of these are realistic, while others are fabulist or surreal. Regardless, though, they all feel so real. There are some uncomfortable scenes, but not in a body horror way—in the way that being a human is gross.
If you love Carmen Maria Machado, especially Her Body and Other Parties, you need to pick up Sympathy for Wild Girls. They’re both feminist, fabulist/magical realist stories that get under your skin. Some are heart-achingly sympathetic, like falling in love with your straight rich white best friend—who will never acknowledge anything between you but friendship, and yet says her boyfriend is threatened by your relationship. Others are far from most people’s lives, like a school nurse whose grief over her girlfriend dying makes her lose touch with reality and start experimenting on animals with a kid at her school in an attempt to find the secret to bring someone back from the dead.
Several deal with very intense, weird, undefined childhood friendships between girls, or complicated relationships between women that are left without clarity—if there’s any universal queer woman experience, this is probably it. There’s so much yearning and a lot of near misses. My heart went out to one character who is so confused about the judgment she experiences as a queer girl who hasn’t yet realized she’s queer—but her peers seem to sniff it out and isolate her regardless.
Some stories have an arc, while others are more like vignettes: snapshots into someone’s life. They’re always always visceral, evocative, and having to do with the body. These are the kind of stories that you can really dig into and interpret: I would love to have studied them in a class, because it feels like there’s so much packed into just a few pages.
Content warnings: Animal harm and death, eating disorders, homophobia, child harm, kidnapping, homophobia, racism, and violence.
