Violet Hour Book Club : "How we Fight for our Lives"

Le dimanche 22 février 2026, à 15h00.

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Espace des possibles, 6450 avenue Christophe-Colomb

Join us for the next meeting of the Violet Hour Book Club, a reading group devoted to classic and contemporary works of LGBTQ literature. The book we will be discussing is How We Fight for Our Lives: A Memoir (2019) by Saeed Jones.

Toustes sont invités·es au Violet Hour Book Club, et chacun.e est bienvenu.e à partager ses pensées sur le livre en anglais ou en français.

We will be meeting at Espace des Possibles Petite-Patrie (6450 Avenue Christophe Colomb, Beaubien Metro). L’Espace des Possibles a comme mission d’offrir un lieu d’entraide, d’apprentissages et d’implication dédié à la transition sociale et écologique (la transition socio-écologique).

The space is given to us for free, but VHBC participants are welcome to make voluntary contributions to help support our mandate to create LGBTQ literary events for Montrealers.

A reminder: All VHBC titles are available at Librairie Paragraphe Bookstore (2220, McGill College Ave) at 15% off and at Librairie Pulp Books & Cafe (3952 Wellington St.) at 10% off.

ABOUT THE BOOK ///

From award-winning poet Saeed Jones, How We Fight for Our Lives—winner of the Kirkus Prize and the Stonewall Book Award—is a “moving, bracingly honest memoir” (The New York Times Book Review) written at the crossroads of sex, race, and power.

One of the best books of the year as selected by The New York Times; The Washington Post; NPR; Time; The New Yorker; O, The Oprah Magazine; Harper’s Bazaar; Elle; BuzzFeed; Goodreads; and many more.

“People don’t just happen,” writes Saeed Jones. “We sacrifice former versions of ourselves. We sacrifice the people who dared to raise us. The ‘I’ it seems doesn’t exist until we are able to say, ‘I am no longer yours.’”

Haunted and haunting, How We Fight for Our Lives is a stunning coming-of-age memoir about a young, black, gay man from the South as he fights to carve out a place for himself, within his family, within his country, within his own hopes, desires, and fears. Through a series of vignettes that chart a course across the American landscape, Jones draws readers into his boyhood and adolescence—into tumultuous relationships with his family, into passing flings with lovers, friends, and strangers. Each piece builds into a larger examination of race and queerness, power and vulnerability, love and grief: a portrait of what we all do for one another—and to one another—as we fight to become ourselves.

An award-winning poet, Jones has developed a style that’s as beautiful as it is powerful—a voice that’s by turns a river, a blues, and a nightscape set ablaze. How We Fight for Our Lives is a one-of-a-kind memoir and a book that cements Saeed Jones as an essential writer for our time.