I requested and received an eARC of Harriet Tubman: Live in Concert by Bob the Drag Queen via NetGalley. I love everything Bob does. Although he once famously called for the eradication of libraries, he has such a distinct point of view when discussing literally anything that I knew his first foray into fiction would be a special experience that I couldn’t miss out on. In a time when historical heroes have inexplicably come back to life, Harriet Tubman has plenty to say. Just like Hamilton, Tubman is ready to put on a show about her own life. She enlists Darnell Williams, a former hip-hop producer who enjoyed an illustrious career before being outed live on BET. Together Harriet and Darnell must confront the horrors of their past in order to build a better future.

I was a little taken aback as I started reading, because it felt that I was being dropped in the middle of something that was already happening, like I was missing some sort of key event. This worry quickly dissipated as I made my way through Bob the Drag Queen’s story. I really grew to appreciate the cast of characters in Harriet’s band. Their backstories were all interesting and they all had unique positions on certain issues and historical figures that I found to be fascinating and made me want to do my own research. The heart of this novel, however, is definitely the relationship between Darnell and Harriet. The journey their pasts and the mutual understanding they achieve as Darnell works on the music for Harriet is very special. This is a novel about healing and liberation — and the lyrics are pretty great too!

This book may not be for every Bobblehead, but I suspect many will enjoy it. No, this isn’t a story about drag, or a tell-all, but Bob comes across very clearly in the text. Harriet Tubman: Live in Concert is crammed full of his humor which is expertly blended with both the personal and the political. This is a story told with compassion, it blends history with speculative fiction and the result is very rewarding. There’s a lot of hidden depth within the whimsical premise of this novel. It interrogates the historical and continued experiences of Black Americans in a way that is both informative, sympathetic, and celebratory. The more somber moments in the text are handled with sensitivity and given proper gravity. Overall the novel is joyous and was a pleasure to read