{"product_id":"misbehaving-at-the-crossroads-essays-and-writings-honoree-fanonne-jeffers","title":"Misbehaving at the Crossroads: Essays and Writings;  Honoree Fanonne Jeffers","description":"\u003cdiv data-testid=\"description\" class=\"BookPageMetadataSection__description\"\u003e\n\u003cdiv class=\"TruncatedContent\" tabindex=\"-1\"\u003e\n\u003cdiv class=\"TruncatedContent__text TruncatedContent__text--large TruncatedContent__text--expanded\" data-testid=\"contentContainer\" tabindex=\"-1\"\u003e\n\u003cdiv class=\"DetailsLayoutRightParagraph\"\u003e\n\u003cdiv class=\"DetailsLayoutRightParagraph__widthConstrained\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Formatted\"\u003eHonorée Fanonne Jeffers is at a crossroads.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eTraditional African\/Black American cultures present the crossroads as a place of simultaneous difficulty and possibility. In contemporary times, Kimberlé Crenshaw coined the phrase “intersectionality” to explain the unique position of Black women in America. In many ways, they are at a third attempting to fit into notions of femininity and respectability primarily assigned to White women, while inventing improvisational strategies to combat oppression.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cem\u003eMisbehaving at the Crossroads\u003c\/em\u003e, Jeffers explores the emotional and historical tensions in Black women’s public lives and her own private life. She charts voyages of Black girlhood to womanhood and the currents buffeting these journeys, including the difficulties of racially gendered oppression, the challenges of documenting Black women’s ancestry; the adultification of Black girls; the irony of Black female respectability politics; the origins of Womanism\/Black feminism; and resistance to White supremacy and patriarchy. As Jeffers shows with empathy and wisdom, naming difficult historical truths represents both Blues and transcendence, a crossroads that speaks.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNecessary and sharply observed, provocative and humane, and full of the insight and brilliance that has characterized her poetry and fiction,\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cem\u003eMisbehaving at the Crossroads\u003c\/em\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003eillustrates the life of one extraordinary Black woman—and her extraordinary foremothers.  \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv class=\"\"\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eJune 24, 2025\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAbout the Author\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cmeta charset=\"utf-8\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eHonorée Fanonne Jeffers was born in 1967 and grew up in Durham, North Carolina, and Atlanta, Georgia. Her work examines culture, religion, race, and family. Her first book, The Gospel of Barbecue (2000), won the Stan and Tom Wick poetry prize and was a 2001 Paterson Poetry prize finalist.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eJeffers’s poetry has appeared in the American Poetry Review, Callaloo, the Iowa Review, Ploughshares, and Prairie Schooner. Her work has been anthologized in numerous volumes, including Roll Call: A Generational Anthology of Social and Political Black Literature and Art (2002) and These Hands I Know: Writing About the African American Family (2002). Jeffers has also published fiction in the Indiana Review, the Kenyon Review, the New England Review, and Story Quarterly.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eThe recipient of honors from the Rona Jaffe Foundation, the MacDowell Colony, and the Barbara Deming Memorial Fund for Women, Jeffers teaches creative writing at the University of Oklahoma where she is an associate professor of English.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"FREEAIR Books","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":52332511199554,"sku":null,"price":11.2,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0730\/8735\/3154\/files\/misbehaving_crossroads.jpg?v=1773858971","url":"https:\/\/shop.freeairbooks.com\/products\/misbehaving-at-the-crossroads-essays-and-writings-honoree-fanonne-jeffers","provider":"FREEAIR Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}