Bob the Drag Queen’s fiction debut is a fascinating and compelling read. The premise is wild— Harriet Tubman and other historical figures, including her band of freed people and abolitionists, have come back to life in the present. There is no attempt to explain why or how this has happened, and the narrative is the better for it. It’s not about the why or how, it’s about them finding their place in the present and telling their past stories to the public and more specifically to our protagonist. Darnell is a music producer who had some commercial success 15 years ago and none since; he’s been personally tapped by Harriet Tubman to produce her album and approaches the job with awe and trepidation as he learns the band members’ different stories.

The book really reads like a history lesson you forgot wrapped in a fictional narrative, and we learn/relearn so much along with Darnell. I love also that BDQ included some lesser-known information, like that Harriet Tubman very likely had narcolepsy. I wish they had put it out in time for Black History month, that seems like it was a missed opportunity. My one quibble would be that Darnell’s personal plot seemed a little unfulfilled, but I appreciated the difficult elements tackled, both his religious trauma and being a gay black man in the music industry.

Thank you so much to NetGalley and Gallery Books for the ARC of this book to review.