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Maybe someday
45
/100
I Index Overall Rating
Readers
25/100Critics
65/100Scholars
Author:
J.C. Hallman
Publisher:
Henry Holt and Co.
Date:
June 6, 2023
A dual biography of the so-called âfather of gynecologyâ and the enslaved woman he experimented on without anesthesia or meaningful consent.
What The Reviewers Say
... a compelling and well-researched dual biography.
[A] new masterpiece of revisionist history.
Double biographies are fairly unusual and tend to be about people who were linked together in the minds of their contemporaries. But Anarcha was not associated with Sims in the public mind because Sims took great pains to ensure that she would not be—not because of any shame he felt about exploiting an enslaved woman but because the recurrence of her fistulas belied Sims’s narrative. Hallman’s determination to bring Anarcha out of obscurity restores her humanity and allows readers to reexamine the corrupt foundations of women’s health care..
Truman Capote referred to works like Say Anarcha as nonfiction novels. Hallman uses that material and much more to write a broad if complicated narrative rich in detail about the times and world in which Sims lived.
