Those who follow my reviews know that I have eclectic tastes in books, but Nonfiction and Historical Fiction are both special to me, especially when the topic includes women. Say Anarcha covers all of these topics, plus medical history. J.C. Hallman states in the sources that this book is "speculative nonfiction" and I WANT MORE! I loved the chapters from Anarcha's point of view, even if invented by the male author. This was a very readable book although the words "uterine guillotine" made my uterus make the Windows shut down noise. I look forward to reading more by this author.

Say Anarcha: A Young Woman, A Devious Surgeon, and the Harrowing Birth of Modern Women's Health is an extensively detailed and researched dual biography of Dr. J. Marion Sims who was at one point known as the father of gynecology and one of the enslaved woman he experimented on Anarcha.

Anarcha was more than just a victim, she was knowledgeable of the medical uses of plants, served as a midwife and nurse at several of the locations she was enslaved and was a mother and wife. Sims, meanwhile, is presented as a man of poor origins who sought fame and fortune in the medical field often by questionable means. He tried and failed to find a cure of infant lockjaw, before coming across obstetric fistula, typically caused by prolonged labor. The methods to treat this condition came at the expense of enslaved women who he was able to 'borrow' to practice on before developing treatment methods. For these, he gave his own name and developed specialized equipment. Following his brief meeting with PT Barnum, Sims worked to shape public opinion to his benefit as an expert in gynecology. However, his named method was not as successful as he claimed, and Anarcha lived with his failure.

Say Anarcha chronologically journeys through both Sims and Anarcha's life, from their separate births, through their first chance meeting and the rest of their lives. Frequently with the metaphor that begins the book, that of shooting or falling stars. Anarcha was always on Sims periphery of awareness.

This book is clear evidence of the need for medical ethics and consent and the protection of the disadvantaged from experimentation. As the author states, considerations of Sims "ha[s] become intertwined with broader reevaluations of white supremacy in American history." Indeed, as Hallman shows, Sims frequently did not have the backing or respect of his medical peers. He was technically very capable but his procedures and desperation for fame often clouded his judgement and needlessly killed.

Since his learning of Anarcha in 2015, Hallman has worked to disseminate Anarcha's name and place her knowledge and experience in the medical historical record. One can explore more of the resources Hallman found and used at: AnarchaArchive.com

A deeply researched work of medical history that all medical practitioners should read.

SAY ANARCHA by JC Hallman is a remarkable work that transports readers to the haunting realities of 19th-century America, where the harrowing echoes of enslaved African American women's lives reverberate through time. This powerful novel delves deep into the forgotten pages of history, weaving a compelling narrative that is as heart-wrenching as it is enlightening.
The story revolves around Anarcha, one of the countless enslaved women subjected to Dr. Marion Sims' inhumane medical experiments in his quest to perfect the technique of gynecological surgery. a white doctor who is often credited with the invention of modern gynecology.
Drawing inspiration from historical events, the author masterfully combines fact and fiction, bringing the agonizing experiences of Anarcha and her fellow enslaved women to life with vivid prose. Hallman's writing effortlessly transports readers to the 19th-century Southern United States, immersing them in a world of suffering and hope. This strength was also a weakness to me, as I felt bogged down by all the history. At one point I decided to start skipping over the incredible details and concentrate on Anarcha and the other major characters. These are my thoughts; others may welcome the history as a refresher, or as new knowledge.
The book begins with a brief overview of Sims's life and work. Sims was a brilliant surgeon, but he was also a deeply flawed man who was willing to exploit the most vulnerable members of society in his quest for medical knowledge. In 1846, Sims began performing experimental surgeries on Anarcha, who had suffered a severe vesicovaginal fistula, a condition that causes urine to leak into the vagina. Sims performed these surgeries without anesthesia, and Anarcha endured unimaginable pain and suffering. She eventually died from complications from all her surgeries.
The book is divided into two parts. The first part tells the story of Anarcha's life, from her childhood in slavery to her years of suffering at the hands of Sims. The second part tells the story of Sims' rise to fame as the "Father of Gynecology." Sims' innovations were built upon the suffering and exploitation of Anarcha and other enslaved women. Hallman weaves a vivid tapestry of historical accounts, immersing readers in the cruel reality faced by Anarcha and countless others, while shedding light on the often-neglected narratives of African American women in history.
Hallman's book does not shy away from the horrors of Anarcha's story. He describes in detail the surgeries that Sims performed on her, and he also explores the psychological and emotional toll that these surgeries took on Anarcha. However, Hallman also does a masterful job of humanizing Anarcha. He shows us that she was a complex and resilient woman who was determined to survive and thrive, even in the face of unspeakable cruelty. Despite the horrific abuse she suffered, Anarcha never gave up hope. She continued to fight for her freedom, and she eventually won her release from slavery.
One of the book's strengths is the author's ability to blend history with imagination, breathing life into Anarcha and the other characters surrounding her. Hallman's meticulous research is evident, as he brings to light the horrors of slavery and the atrocities committed in the name of medical progress.
The novel also explores the perspectives of those around Anarcha, including Dr. Sims himself. This multi-dimensional approach adds depth to the narrative, forcing readers to confront the uncomfortable truths about the moral and ethical dilemmas faced by those complicit in perpetuating the system of slavery. The portrayal of Dr. Sims is particularly nuanced, exploring the complexity of his character as both a pioneering surgeon and a morally flawed individual. For all his knowledge, he was extremely self-centered and didn’t even care about women’s health as he was going through medical school! I feel that he did everything solely to make his name known, not out of compassion.
"Say Anarcha" may not be for the faint of heart due to its graphic descriptions of medical procedures and the harsh realities of slavery. Readers should be prepared for an emotionally intense journey that forces them to confront the uncomfortable truths of history.

Say Anarcha is a compelling and well-researched dual biography of Anarcha, an enslaved woman, and J. Marion Sims, the "father of modern gynecology." Hallman's book tells the story of how Sims's experimental surgeries on Anarcha led to advances in the field of women's health, but at a great cost to Anarcha's own body and well-being. It was definitely a tough read but worth it.

The first thing I did, before beginning this review, was to double-check that the statue of J. Marion Sims has been removed from Central Park, because Sims was a monster and the thought of honoring him with a monument is repugnant beyond belief.

The statue was indeed removed, in 2018, and moved to storage at Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn, where Sims is buried. Supposedly the cemetery was going to put up the statue by his grave, but with an explanatory plaque. Let's just say that Sims is not featured prominently on the cemetery's website, which does include information about other notables. You can find his grave, but he's tactfully listed as "James M. Sims."

OK, I'm working my way up to talking about this book, but I face the problem of how to describe the experience of reading it. Harrowing? Horrifying? Torturous? The trouble is, of course, that all those adjectives apply literally to what Anarcha and many other women, mainly enslaved African American women but also, later, others, suffered for the sake of this man's ambition and hubris. Dispiritingly, even accounts of the statue's removal describe him as having pioneered surgery for vesico-vaginal fistula, which according to Hallman's deeply researched book is giving him way, way too much credit.* Other surgeons had attempted to cure fistula before him, and though Sims experimented (watch that word) with this and that method, he succeeded in very few cases. He claimed Anarcha as one of those cases, and she was not. She suffered not only from the fistulas themselves (she had more than one) but also from, oh God, surgery after surgery after surgery after surgery after surgery after surgery ...

I don't know how she bore it.

I don't know how any of her fellow sufferers at Sims's hands bore it.

I don't know how any of the enslaved people Sims operated on for various problems bore it.

Unsurprisingly, Sims didn't limit his depredations to enslaved African American women. Having participated in the establishment of a hospital for women in NYC, he also operated nonconsensually on Irish women (who weren't quite "white" in those days anyway) and on middle-class white women (he got their husbands' consent). The man's whole biography (in fact, the history of gynecology and obstetrics generally, as Say Anarcha makes dreadfully clear) is an object lesson in how those who dehumanize Others almost always have a long, long list of who counts as Other. (White women who vote Republican, take notice. [Not that you will.])

To make this whole story even more terrible, it becomes clear over time that Anarcha was intelligent and observant. Very intelligent and very observant. Under hellish circumstances she, Betsy, and Lucy (Betsy and Lucy were among those most often subject to Sims's work) taught themselves how to perform -- for example -- such nursing procedures as inserting and maintaining urinary catheters, and also how best to care in all ways for women with fistulas. Obviously it wouldn't matter, from a moral point of view, how intelligent or stupid Sims's victims were, but, lord, the waste. There was at least one person in the operating room with Sims who would have made a brilliant physician or surgeon, and that person was not Sims.

I described Say Anarcha as deeply researched, and it is. But there's a difficulty, of course: the lives of enslaved people were little documented, and Anarcha's life is no exception to this rule. Hallman has filled in the blanks by extrapolating from accounts of enslaved people's lives generally and also from what's known of particular people's lives. So, for example, when Anarcha's husband, Lorenzo, advises just before emancipation that they should be "even more polite with white folks" for the time being, that detail comes from the narrative (published by the Library of Congress) of a formerly enslaved woman named Mary Anderson. Does such a historical detail become fiction when it's attached to another person entirely?

I was asking myself this question throughout, especially when it came to Anarcha's interiority. But here's the trouble: had Hallman relied only on what was documented about Anarcha herself, this would have been Sims's book, with only cameos by her and his other victims. "Dehumanized" is the wrong word; "flattened" or "diminished" might be better. As it stands, we get a full portrait of ... someone. She's heroic and intelligent. So must Anarcha have been, and how glad I would be to see her real self emerge from the mist.

There's an excellent epilogue about fistula surgery as practiced in Africa today, with great success, by African surgeons. ... And of course there's such a thing as surgery tourism, in which surgeons from the developed world come to Africa to polish up their skills. Of course. Of course.

Endnotes for Say Anarcha would have been longer than the book itself, so there's a website where you can find all the documentation, including images of many of Hallman's sources. Highly recommended even if you don't read the book.

A real life horror story about a woman who was essentially tortured for the sake of medical progress. I highly recommend this book if you enjoy reading about medical injustices, including The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks and Medical Apartheid.

Interesting, but way too much speculation about the characters' inner lives (and Anarcah's early life in particular. I'd much prefer my history to actually be historical, not the author's interpretation based on too few facts.

10 Stars!

I am an African American woman. After reading the blurb that revealed this novel would investigate Dr. Sims’s medical experimentation on enslaved women - I knew this would be a difficult but necessary and essential read. I was familiar “enough” with Dr. Sim’s work, after all, he was heralded in the medical field for his gynecological work; but methods and ethics were called into question and criticized to the point that his NYC statue was removed amid the controversial findings. No doubt this book would not be an easy read – I’d have to center my chi, prepare my heart, adjust my mindset, and say a prayer for the ancestors before diving into what would be no doubt some emotionally challenging and horrendous revelations.

The author delivers a page-turning narrative that alternates Anarcha’s story with Sims’. Early chapters chronicle his mediocre beginnings and struggles to pursue medicine to prove himself worthy of a love interest, a quest for fame and fortune as a credible practitioner of medicine. Anarcha’s story is largely imagined, but plausible, as the understudy of an enslaved “doctoring woman”/midwife who happened to be an expert herbalist. The experimental techniques and surgical practices were gruesome (honestly, many were nothing short of trial and error – torture resulting in a lifetime of pain, suffering, and humiliation) and far from today’s recommended and proven practices of modern medicine.

I admire J.C. Hallman’s dedication to finding Anarcha - his perseverance led to the discovery of her beginnings, her travels, her acquaintances, family, and final resting place. I loved how he balanced her life with that of Sims’ and methodically, logically dispelled Sim’s false claims revealing his duplicitous and deceitful nature.

Well done and award-worthy! Recommended reading to history buffs!

Thanks to the publisher, Henry Holt & Company, and NetGalley for an opportunity to review.

"Say Anarcha" offers a fresh and captivating perspective on the life of Dr. J. Marion Sims and his contributions to modern gynecology. J.C. Hallman delves into the lives of three slaves—Anarcha, Ankey, and Annacay—and their harrowing experiences as subjects of Sims' experiments in the name of medical advancement. Through this book, readers gain valuable historical insights into the lives of these three women, shedding light on their stories that were tragically overlooked due to the prevailing devaluation of slaves and their narratives.

One of the notable strengths of this book is its ability to bring forth historical details about Dr. Sims, revealing a somewhat ordinary existence behind his medical achievements. However, it is crucial to acknowledge that much of the information about Anarcha, Ankey, and Annacay presented is speculative, given the historical marginalization of slaves and the lack of importance attributed to their stories. Despite this limitation, "Say Anarcha" holds significant value for researchers and individuals striving to center Black women in their work, offering a meaningful contribution to this important goal.

Also, this book delves into HEAVY topics, providing explicit accounts of the horrific abuses endured by slaves. Consequently, it may prove challenging for some readers. However, "Say Anarcha" serves as a crucial narrative for those interested in the fields of medicine, public health, and history, as well as anyone with a general curiosity about our collective past.

Overall, "Say Anarcha" presents an engaging exploration of Dr. J. Marion Sims' life and his impact on modern gynecology, while shedding light on the often-ignored stories of Anarcha, Ankey, and Annacay. Although some information remains speculative due to the historical circumstances, this book is a significant asset for those seeking to center Black women's experiences and contributions. Its weighty content makes it a necessary read for individuals interested in the fields of medicine, public health, and history, as well as those curious about the United States dark past.

Huge thanks to Netgalley and Henry Holt publishers for providing me with this digital e-arc in response for my review. I will certainly return to this book for my own academic research.

An extensive study of the lives of Anarcha, an enslaved woman, and Dr Marion Sims, who operated on her and other enslaved women without anesthesia in his effort to find a way to "cure" fistulas. Anarcha was his first "success," except she wasn't and she underwent over 30 procedures, Many other women who were part of this effort died and even if they lived, they were sent right back to their miserable living conditions. This takes some sideways tours through the lives of other surgeons and the socio-economic conditions of the period and at times it's perhaps more graphic (from a medical perspective) than the casual reader might like. That said, you will learn a great deal from this. Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC. An interesting read.

This wasn’t interesting to me. It felt very dry and textbook like. It wasn’t holding my interest. I’m not going to finish.

Say Anarcha makes significant contributions to the history of medicine. Knowing more about the women that Sims experimented on is immensely valuable, and I cannot praise that enough. However, the book is unnecessarily bloated with the stories of people tangentially related to the lives of Anarcha and Sims.

Anarcha was one of the enslaved women that Dr. Marion Sims experimented on extensively on his path to fame. He has been celebrated as the father of American gynecology, while the enslaved women he performed surgeries on without anesthesia 20 and 30 plus times have been erased from the medical and history books. This is difficult history to recover, but Hallman's extensive work revealed important stories.

The book is worth it for the chapters on Anarcha and Sims. The writing here is approachable and perfect for both a wider audience as well as experts. However, I found the focus on comets and celestial bodies completely unnecessary to the story, and there are too many chapters dedicated to detailing the lives of people that, while interesting in their own right, don't add significantly to understanding either Anarcha or Sim.

The speculative nature of the history here is necessary, given how little evidence we have of Anarcha or her point of view. The speculative parts were well done. Though as a historian, I would have appreciated more of a discussion of sources and the choices made by Hallman. There are parts where that was done with other people's stories, and it was expertly done, so why not with Anarcha?

In Say Anarcha, J.C. Hallman pieces together Anarcha's life as well as deconstructing J. Marion Sims' celebrity surgeon mythos. I tend to be really hit or miss with speculative nonfiction, but Say Anarcha is really well done. One reader caution is that the descriptions of the surgeries can be very graphic at times.

My thoughts stand in some contradiction to other early reviews. The effort of Hallman to present an alternative view to the gynecological work done by J. Marion Sims and others is important, just as showing the impact on a specific individual, Anarcha, of repeated, uninformed and ill advised procedures could be. Black slaves were by far the most victimized of a man’s desire for fame and attention, but the book clearly demonstrates the both racist and misogynistic views that many “doctors”, prevalently white men, had during the time the events in this book take place. Slaves suffered the most from the experimentation that took place, but women of all races and backgrounds were experimented on. Readers should be cautioned that descriptions can be very graphic for those that do not have a medical background, and those that do have a medical background will also likely be horrified by the nature in which these women were treated. The book sends important messages about the history of healthcare and the real people that suffered as a result, many times unnecessarily. These are problems addressed by the book. The book itself also has problematic issues that have nothing to do with its primary focus. Hallman at times has a difficult time staying on task, creating an unnecessarily long book with a narrative that goes off topic and can sometimes go back and forth in time depending on who and what the current focus is. There is way too much attention given to astronomical events, to the Maury family, to events of the Civil War and almost the last tenth of book is dedicated to an afterward about fistula in more modern day Africa. None of these are bad, and some would be interesting as separate studies, but it is too much unnecessary content on top of the intertwined lives of Anarcha and Sims. Hallman states at the beginning that the book is speculative nonfiction, which means that the reader needs to keep this in mind every time emotions and motives are presumed. And while he states that the sources are so extensive that the reader should go out to a website to see them, trimming back unrelated content and providing at least a select biography of more major sources (with a direction to the complete list) would have been nice as a reader. A complimentary copy of this book was provided by the publisher. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

I read a lot of fictional horror, but the real horrors in the world are the things people do to each other. After reading Say Anarcha, I'm almost speechless. Fortunately, author J.C. Hallman found the words because this is an important part of the history of racism, patriarchy, surgery, and women's rights. Thankfully, the afterword is hopeful, or I'd finish this book really depressed.

Dr. Sims did experimental surgery for fistula on enslaved women. He didn't make any attempt at anesthesia beyond telling the suffering women that they'd be punished if they cried or screamed. Anarcha had 30 or more experimental operations, with no painkillers. All the operations failed. Never-the-less, Dr. Sims wrote articles and gave speeches claiming success. HIs ultimate goal wasn't curing as much as it was getting wealthy off of rich white women who also needed surgery for fistula. (Fistula is the tearing of the vagina during difficult pregnancies allowing feces and urine to escape through the birth canal.)

Anarcha and the other enslaved women learned to assist during the surgeries and proved to be better at providing aftercare than the doctors. What did they get for their heroism and hard work? Nothing but being sent back to plantations to be overworked and unpaid. Plus, Sims pretended he didn't know Anarcha because he didn't want the rich women to know his surgeries on her failed. How's that for gratitude to the woman he experimented on more than 30 times?

This book also includes a lot about the history of the times. Included are biographies of the various surgeons. Much of the thoughts and feelings of Anarch are conjecture because her history before and after her surgeries wasn't recorded. Though she was a fine doctor herself to the enslaved on the plantations, and to the white families in the big house, she was never taught to read or write. Anarcha delivered countless babies and had a deep knowledge of medicinal herbs from the forests.

As I mentioned, if it wasn't for the optimistic afterword about the care of fistula today, this is an emotionally difficult book to read. There is horrible abuse of the enslaved, very sexist treatment of all women, and the descriptions of experimental and cruel surgeries on women and animals.

It's an important story, though. I learned much about the history of slavery, medicine, and attitudes of the past. Thank you to Netgalley and Henry Holt publishers for allowing me to read and review Say Anarcha.