Anyone who tells you that listening to an audiobook isn’t “technically” reading is lying. When George M. Johnson’s newest nonfiction – Flamboyants: The Queer Harlem Renaissance I Wish I’d Known – hit the audio shelf, I made it my top priority to give it a listen, and this slim book – mixed with poetry by Johnson and snippets of music from the Harlem Renaissance – did not disappoint; indeed, it dazzled, delighted, and demystified some “accepted truths”.
You might know Johnson from his previous book All Boys Aren’t Blue (2020), a memoir that chronicles his coming-of-age as a queer kid in the northeastern part of the United States (a collection of essays I highly recommend). Flamboyants is his second book, and it packs a delicious punch of Black queer joy by shining a light on some of the lesser-known but certainly eccentric queers of the Harlem Renaissance through fourteen essays. From Countee Cullen to Alaine Locke, from Ma Riney to Josephine Baker, Johnson highlights the art, activism, and writing that flourished in the Black community during the 1920s; the crucial difference, however, is that Johnson includes each person’s queerness as central to their art, activism, and writing – something that past biographers (and most school textbooks withhold or – at worst – deny). Johnson weaves these artists’ stories with his own, and in a recent interview he said “There is no me without them.” His essays show us how history affects identity, and how identity can – even when uncovered in hindsight – reflect interconnectedness of community. Give this book a listen if you get the chance, and then pick up the hard copy for the beautiful illustrations; it will certainly bring a smile to your face. Flamboyants is marketed as young adult nonfiction, but it’s a book that people of all ages can enjoy.
This review first appeared in the November 2024 print edition of Out in Wichita. Click here to see the review in print
shelly. walston. writes. 