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Misbehaving at the Crossroads: Essays & Writings – A Personal and Historical Exploration of Black Women's Journeys Through Intersectionality
Longlisted for the National Book Critics Circle award for Nonfiction
The New York Times-bestselling, National Book Award-nominated author of The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois and The Age of Phillis makes her nonfiction debut with this personal and thought-provoking work that explores the journeys and possibilities of Black women throughout American history and in contemporary times.
Honorée Fanonne Jeffers is at a crossroads.
Traditional 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.
In Misbehaving at the Crossroads, 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.
Necessary and sharply observed, provocative and humane, and full of the insight and brilliance that has characterized her poetry and fiction, Misbehaving at the Crossroads illustrates the life of one extraordinary Black woman—and her extraordinary foremothers.
The New York Times-bestselling, National Book Award-nominated author of The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois and The Age of Phillis makes her nonfiction debut with this personal and thought-provoking work that explores the journeys and possibilities of Black women throughout American history and in contemporary times.
Honorée Fanonne Jeffers is at a crossroads.
Traditional 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.
In Misbehaving at the Crossroads, 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.
Necessary and sharply observed, provocative and humane, and full of the insight and brilliance that has characterized her poetry and fiction, Misbehaving at the Crossroads illustrates the life of one extraordinary Black woman—and her extraordinary foremothers.
353 pages, Kindle Edition
Published June 24, 2025
90 people are currently reading
5039 people want to read
About the author
Honorée Fanonne Jeffers
22 books1,300 followersHonorée 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.
Jeffers’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.
The 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.
Jeffers’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.
The 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.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 71 reviews
June 23, 2025
When Honorée Fanonne Jeffers speaks and writes, she sounds like home to me. She sounds like the Black women who raised me, the Black women who didn’t take any mess, the Black women who knew how to put someone (especially younger folks) in their place by just giving them a look, the Black women who took on a lot of their families burdens often at the expense of their health and wellbeing.
In her newest book, Misbehaving at the Crossroads, Jeffers, the acclaimed poet and novelist, has written her first nonfiction collection, consisting of 42 essays, poems, letters, and other writings. Each piece is different, but there is a throughline in these writings; they are collectively about the challenges and crossroads of being a Black woman. These writings also emphasize the importance of being a womanist and a feminist, as well as a truth teller to the powers that be, whether they are white poet gatekeepers or former leaders of the free world. Other pieces are about the societal expectations Black women are expected to keep, such as embracing the patriarchy in a marriage, tending to the needs of the extended family, pretending as if everything is alright when secrets are kept in the dark, and not showing others when they’re exhausted.
Jeffers comes from a lineage of misbehaving Black women, including her late mother, Dr. Trellie Lee James Jeffers, who is the central figure of this book. It is through her lineage that Honorée Jeffers is an unapologetic person who knows her worth. Some may call this vain or arrogant, but that could not be further from the truth. In a world where Black women are disrespected, underrecognized, and underappreciated, one must toot their own horn to get the respect, recognition, and appreciation that they deserve and have worked so hard for.
Jeffers reveals vulnerability in the pages of this book as she shares intimate and personal details about her life. This takes courage, and it takes bravery to do this; she does not disappoint or shrink from the fight. There is power in these writings that hit you in the gut. You must take your time with these pieces; don’t rush through them.
Numerous writings in this book resonated with me, but the one that stays front of my mind is #38 “On Being Fannie Lou Hamer Tired,” which covers the exhaustion that Black women experience. This piece hit home to me because I have seen this firsthand in the lives of the Black women in my circle, time and time again.
Misbehaving at the Crossroads is a very serious book, but it also has many moments of levity. I love the humor throughout; at times, I felt like I could hear Jeffers saying these passages in her signature drawl.
This is Jeffers’ seventh book, following her five poetry collections and her magnificent novel The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois. Having read all six of her prior works, I can confirm that they all lead or have shaped what you will read in this seventh book (you should read them all if you haven’t already). In Biblical numerology, we are taught that the number seven symbolizes completion, à la the six days that God created the cosmos, Earth, and its inhabitants, and rested on the seventh day. It seems fitting and somewhat ironic that this seventh book is coming at a time when Jeffers is retiring from full-time teaching. Jeffers is at another crossroads in her life, one in which she can take the road that has more freedom to write additional works of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry that uplift the lives of Black women, or the other road where she quietly rests on her laurels and enjoys her retirement. If this book has taught me anything is that Jeffers will take the former road rather than the latter. Her formal teaching career may have ended, but she will continue to educate her readers on the history of this country, how Southern Black and Indigenous people built this nation, and she will continue to speak up for the vulnerable and the marginalized. She will continue to misbehave, and we are all the better for it.
Thanks to Harper and Honorée Fanonne Jeffers for the ARC copy. This book will be released on June 24, 2025.
Review also published on my blog Ballasts for the Mind https://medium.com/ballasts-for-the-m...
In her newest book, Misbehaving at the Crossroads, Jeffers, the acclaimed poet and novelist, has written her first nonfiction collection, consisting of 42 essays, poems, letters, and other writings. Each piece is different, but there is a throughline in these writings; they are collectively about the challenges and crossroads of being a Black woman. These writings also emphasize the importance of being a womanist and a feminist, as well as a truth teller to the powers that be, whether they are white poet gatekeepers or former leaders of the free world. Other pieces are about the societal expectations Black women are expected to keep, such as embracing the patriarchy in a marriage, tending to the needs of the extended family, pretending as if everything is alright when secrets are kept in the dark, and not showing others when they’re exhausted.
Jeffers comes from a lineage of misbehaving Black women, including her late mother, Dr. Trellie Lee James Jeffers, who is the central figure of this book. It is through her lineage that Honorée Jeffers is an unapologetic person who knows her worth. Some may call this vain or arrogant, but that could not be further from the truth. In a world where Black women are disrespected, underrecognized, and underappreciated, one must toot their own horn to get the respect, recognition, and appreciation that they deserve and have worked so hard for.
Jeffers reveals vulnerability in the pages of this book as she shares intimate and personal details about her life. This takes courage, and it takes bravery to do this; she does not disappoint or shrink from the fight. There is power in these writings that hit you in the gut. You must take your time with these pieces; don’t rush through them.
Numerous writings in this book resonated with me, but the one that stays front of my mind is #38 “On Being Fannie Lou Hamer Tired,” which covers the exhaustion that Black women experience. This piece hit home to me because I have seen this firsthand in the lives of the Black women in my circle, time and time again.
Misbehaving at the Crossroads is a very serious book, but it also has many moments of levity. I love the humor throughout; at times, I felt like I could hear Jeffers saying these passages in her signature drawl.
This is Jeffers’ seventh book, following her five poetry collections and her magnificent novel The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois. Having read all six of her prior works, I can confirm that they all lead or have shaped what you will read in this seventh book (you should read them all if you haven’t already). In Biblical numerology, we are taught that the number seven symbolizes completion, à la the six days that God created the cosmos, Earth, and its inhabitants, and rested on the seventh day. It seems fitting and somewhat ironic that this seventh book is coming at a time when Jeffers is retiring from full-time teaching. Jeffers is at another crossroads in her life, one in which she can take the road that has more freedom to write additional works of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry that uplift the lives of Black women, or the other road where she quietly rests on her laurels and enjoys her retirement. If this book has taught me anything is that Jeffers will take the former road rather than the latter. Her formal teaching career may have ended, but she will continue to educate her readers on the history of this country, how Southern Black and Indigenous people built this nation, and she will continue to speak up for the vulnerable and the marginalized. She will continue to misbehave, and we are all the better for it.
Thanks to Harper and Honorée Fanonne Jeffers for the ARC copy. This book will be released on June 24, 2025.
Review also published on my blog Ballasts for the Mind https://medium.com/ballasts-for-the-m...
July 21, 2025
It’s a disservice not to talk about this book. This is the best work of art I’ve read in 2025 thus far.
Honorée is out here doing the Lord’s work. Essay. Memoir. Reflective history. Whose history? All of ours it feels like. All of Black women’s history in this series of essays. No one is doing it like Honorée and Imani — like they’re deep in their bag.
This book dragged me out of whatever stupors I was in. Infinitely readable. Passionate. She brought her rage to the page and we need that. I needed to read it. I needed to realize. We need to realize that we’re not alone. I know we’re not.
The reasons why people are scared is because there are women in this world, women like Honorée, women like Imani Perry, women like Nicole Hannah-Jones, women like Austin Channing Brown, and Candice Marie Benbow — women who no matter how much people scream fake news or try to silence folks, there are women, writing, taking names, following the instruction of the many many women who came before them— the June Jordan, Toni Cade, Angela Y Davis, bell hooks, Toni Morrison types — women who you know are telling the truth, about their experiences, the experiences of their community members, their experience with jobs and institutions, and men, their daddies, and churches and expectations and lies and fictions that will not be swayed in telling their truths, and there’s not a good goddamn thing anyone can do about it, because as long as they pick up the pen, it will shake the table. It will also serve as the otherside the underbelly the truth of whatever facade that thing, man, church, state, institution, is trying to put up as their front. It will never be able to live without the truth about it somewhere. The truth on the otherside, the accurate side, that unifies the realities of millions of people.
Anyway, this book took me out. I’m dead. I closed it and I breathed deeply and was shaken. It was really good. What’s it that the kids say: she got her lick back? I want to thank Honorée for her work. Oh oh.. one more thing. I love when someone who shatters the tea pot, goes deep on illustrating who helped Kintsugi that shit back together: I loved the acknowledgements section of this text — it was incredible to read, I just know it felt incredible for her to write it!
A stone cold five star read. A must read.
Honorée is out here doing the Lord’s work. Essay. Memoir. Reflective history. Whose history? All of ours it feels like. All of Black women’s history in this series of essays. No one is doing it like Honorée and Imani — like they’re deep in their bag.
This book dragged me out of whatever stupors I was in. Infinitely readable. Passionate. She brought her rage to the page and we need that. I needed to read it. I needed to realize. We need to realize that we’re not alone. I know we’re not.
The reasons why people are scared is because there are women in this world, women like Honorée, women like Imani Perry, women like Nicole Hannah-Jones, women like Austin Channing Brown, and Candice Marie Benbow — women who no matter how much people scream fake news or try to silence folks, there are women, writing, taking names, following the instruction of the many many women who came before them— the June Jordan, Toni Cade, Angela Y Davis, bell hooks, Toni Morrison types — women who you know are telling the truth, about their experiences, the experiences of their community members, their experience with jobs and institutions, and men, their daddies, and churches and expectations and lies and fictions that will not be swayed in telling their truths, and there’s not a good goddamn thing anyone can do about it, because as long as they pick up the pen, it will shake the table. It will also serve as the otherside the underbelly the truth of whatever facade that thing, man, church, state, institution, is trying to put up as their front. It will never be able to live without the truth about it somewhere. The truth on the otherside, the accurate side, that unifies the realities of millions of people.
Anyway, this book took me out. I’m dead. I closed it and I breathed deeply and was shaken. It was really good. What’s it that the kids say: she got her lick back? I want to thank Honorée for her work. Oh oh.. one more thing. I love when someone who shatters the tea pot, goes deep on illustrating who helped Kintsugi that shit back together: I loved the acknowledgements section of this text — it was incredible to read, I just know it felt incredible for her to write it!
A stone cold five star read. A must read.
July 17, 2025
Honorée Jeffers is brilliance personified. Her perspective on current and past societal issues and how she is wrapping it into her lived experiences is mind blowing. Then… she has the audacity to throw in poetry??! I’m so grateful that I get to witness the legends of the Black Cannon of our generation in real time! Finished this one in 24 hours and I’m truly in awe 👏🏾👏🏾
September 23, 2025
"For many White folks, shame and its repercussions fuel the desire to erase slavery history in the United States."
Honoree Fanonne Jeffers is a very talented and accomplished Black woman. She's a professor, a poet and she wrote one the the best books I've ever read, Love Songs of W.E.B. DuBois. That book ripped my heart out but I loved every second of it. That book is even more powerful after reading this book. Love Songs, is filled with lots of physical and sexual abuse, it's graphic and hard to read. After reading this it's clear that Professor Jeffers is no stranger to abuse.
"The truth is that, when it comes to the United States, the actual history of my ancestors is a trigger warning."
Misbehaving At the Crossroads is a collection of essays about not just the trauma she and her family experienced but also the trauma that African Americans as a whole have experienced. It's a tough read but it's also funny and it just felt like I was hearing stories from one of my aunties.
"Just because somebody White didn't see our ancestors or they refused to see those people doesn't mean those ancestors didn't exist or that this nation's crimes against humanity did not occur."
A masterpiece. A must-read.
Honoree Fanonne Jeffers is a very talented and accomplished Black woman. She's a professor, a poet and she wrote one the the best books I've ever read, Love Songs of W.E.B. DuBois. That book ripped my heart out but I loved every second of it. That book is even more powerful after reading this book. Love Songs, is filled with lots of physical and sexual abuse, it's graphic and hard to read. After reading this it's clear that Professor Jeffers is no stranger to abuse.
"The truth is that, when it comes to the United States, the actual history of my ancestors is a trigger warning."
Misbehaving At the Crossroads is a collection of essays about not just the trauma she and her family experienced but also the trauma that African Americans as a whole have experienced. It's a tough read but it's also funny and it just felt like I was hearing stories from one of my aunties.
"Just because somebody White didn't see our ancestors or they refused to see those people doesn't mean those ancestors didn't exist or that this nation's crimes against humanity did not occur."
A masterpiece. A must-read.
July 5, 2025
This collection is a must read for so many reasons. I loved Professor Jeffers Love Songs of W.E.B. DuBois and was looking forward to reading her new non-fiction collection. She makes incorporating history and the personal seem effortless. And each essay delves into the hardships and continuous micro aggressions that Black women endure. And the strength that emerged from generations of trauma and abuse. But what also comes through, is the love for her family, despite her complicated family history. Thought provoking and just so eloquently written, these essays will stay with me.
I received an arc from the publisher but all opinions are my own.
Staff Pick 7/25
I received an arc from the publisher but all opinions are my own.
Staff Pick 7/25
July 12, 2025
Very, VERY GOOD!!! I just finished and don’t have the words to express how much I loved this book and my experience dwelling in her gift. You will always learn something from this incredibly smart woman. Her writing has yet again wrapped me up in a big, warm, sista girl hug!! I love me some Honorée!!
August 2, 2025
I could not I could not I could not put Misbehaving at the Crossroads down. Silly me: I should have opened Dr. Jeffers’s newest with nothing but high expectations because we love a sustained critique of race, gender, and the patriarchy (religious and societal) from an African American woman in academia. In her rememory (per Morrison), the author pulls from these themes and more, compiling various forms of non-fiction pieces together (e.g., essay, epistles, autobiographical fiction, diary entries) to form a cohesive and compelling whole. Her fiction in The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois excites, but her non-fic enraptures.
Dr. Jeffers’s academic research focuses on African American history and culture, and Misbehaving at the Crossroads offers a space for Dr. Jeffers to examine her biological family’s ancestral story and the dynamics of her nuclear family. Raised by parents who work in academia and volunteer with Black American activist groups, Dr. Jeffers uniquely cares about the experiences and rights of African American women, historically and contemporarily. She calls all Black women to identify as feminists, first and foremost, and as womanists. Walking in the tradition of Alice Walker’s seminal work on womanism, the author’s overarching goal as a womanist apologist leads her to describe her life and work as confronting crossroads. She explicates, “In African/Black cultures, the crossroads represents a location of difficulty and possibility. A boundary between the divine and the human.” Dr. Jeffers continually strikes this balance with her unflinching examination of the topics at hand. Her clarion voice is demanding, persuasive. She doesn’t skip ahead to offer quick and therefore cheap solutions—any reasonable American ought to acknowledge that a way forward to an equitable future requires formidable work. Yet we work because the idea of a possibility means a reality can exist. We see pockets of it now; we strive for more.
Dr. Jeffers’s definition of crossroads also includes the divine. She entangles the spiritual, which she learns from her ancestors and later decidedly owns, with her array of assessments. The author critiques the “natural” order (i.e., the cisgender heterosexual male-led nuclear family) enshrined by men in the Christian tradition (hailing from Europe and Africa before the Middle Passage). Citing Christian womanist scholar Katie Cannon, Dr. Jeffers’s lays out biblical reasoning to oppose anti-feminist, anti-womanist, and anti-queer thinking, suggesting instead a Christian argument for “intersectional liberation.” Her so-called misbehavior “as girl and woman who . . . [won’t] get in line” opts to recognize “A Womanist Creator, a genderful God.”
The messiness of all the crossroads Dr. Jeffers faces inevitably means that more than one person should take responsibility as a culprit or offender. For example, Dr. Jeffers slowly reveals that she stopped communicating with her mother because her mother lied to cover up her father’s sexual abuse when she was a young girl. We understand the author’s need for space from her mother, especially given her suicidal ideation. Yet these complicated feelings do not prevent Dr. Jeffers from reconnecting with her mother as she suffers from dementia and the lasting effects of a stroke. She presents these convoluted dynamics well, and I appreciated her openness to set an example of how human beings can be inconsistent, even as she unflinchingly examines her “kindreds and beloveds.” Her letter to Obama about dismantling the patriarchy in the consciousness of brothers? I can’t wait to see his reply. I found this project and methodology—we endeavor to be consistent, but we’re not robots—entirely intellectually stimulating.
On their own, the coming-of-age essays, rememorying her relationships with and complicated love for her imperfect parents, sufficiently interest me. But to add in her seasoned thinking and poetic powers in her lulling yet lucid prose to the mix? Et voilà: the mesmerizing package, Misbehaving at the Crossroads.
N.B.: I normally refer to authors by their last names in reviews; since Dr. Jeffers makes a point about the culturally significant honorific in African American history, I refer to her as “Dr. Jeffers.”
Dr. Jeffers’s academic research focuses on African American history and culture, and Misbehaving at the Crossroads offers a space for Dr. Jeffers to examine her biological family’s ancestral story and the dynamics of her nuclear family. Raised by parents who work in academia and volunteer with Black American activist groups, Dr. Jeffers uniquely cares about the experiences and rights of African American women, historically and contemporarily. She calls all Black women to identify as feminists, first and foremost, and as womanists. Walking in the tradition of Alice Walker’s seminal work on womanism, the author’s overarching goal as a womanist apologist leads her to describe her life and work as confronting crossroads. She explicates, “In African/Black cultures, the crossroads represents a location of difficulty and possibility. A boundary between the divine and the human.” Dr. Jeffers continually strikes this balance with her unflinching examination of the topics at hand. Her clarion voice is demanding, persuasive. She doesn’t skip ahead to offer quick and therefore cheap solutions—any reasonable American ought to acknowledge that a way forward to an equitable future requires formidable work. Yet we work because the idea of a possibility means a reality can exist. We see pockets of it now; we strive for more.
Dr. Jeffers’s definition of crossroads also includes the divine. She entangles the spiritual, which she learns from her ancestors and later decidedly owns, with her array of assessments. The author critiques the “natural” order (i.e., the cisgender heterosexual male-led nuclear family) enshrined by men in the Christian tradition (hailing from Europe and Africa before the Middle Passage). Citing Christian womanist scholar Katie Cannon, Dr. Jeffers’s lays out biblical reasoning to oppose anti-feminist, anti-womanist, and anti-queer thinking, suggesting instead a Christian argument for “intersectional liberation.” Her so-called misbehavior “as girl and woman who . . . [won’t] get in line” opts to recognize “A Womanist Creator, a genderful God.”
The messiness of all the crossroads Dr. Jeffers faces inevitably means that more than one person should take responsibility as a culprit or offender. For example, Dr. Jeffers slowly reveals that she stopped communicating with her mother because her mother lied to cover up her father’s sexual abuse when she was a young girl. We understand the author’s need for space from her mother, especially given her suicidal ideation. Yet these complicated feelings do not prevent Dr. Jeffers from reconnecting with her mother as she suffers from dementia and the lasting effects of a stroke. She presents these convoluted dynamics well, and I appreciated her openness to set an example of how human beings can be inconsistent, even as she unflinchingly examines her “kindreds and beloveds.” Her letter to Obama about dismantling the patriarchy in the consciousness of brothers? I can’t wait to see his reply. I found this project and methodology—we endeavor to be consistent, but we’re not robots—entirely intellectually stimulating.
On their own, the coming-of-age essays, rememorying her relationships with and complicated love for her imperfect parents, sufficiently interest me. But to add in her seasoned thinking and poetic powers in her lulling yet lucid prose to the mix? Et voilà: the mesmerizing package, Misbehaving at the Crossroads.
N.B.: I normally refer to authors by their last names in reviews; since Dr. Jeffers makes a point about the culturally significant honorific in African American history, I refer to her as “Dr. Jeffers.”
October 9, 2025
I say this through eyeliner stained tears but for goodness sake call your mother and read books and work on yourself and find your community no matter how bad your social anxiety may be.
July 18, 2025
If one were to take Malcolm X’s quote from the 60s; “The Black woman is the most disrespected, unprotected and neglected person in America” and mix that with a heavy heaping of memoir, a chunk of essays and a sprinkle of poetry, season it with provocative prose, throw in a dash of rants and raves, the end result would be Misbehaving At The Crossroads.
Professor Jeffers highlights the intersectional struggles that women face in an atmosphere of unrelenting patriarchy that leaves them often exhausted and “Fannie Lou Hamer Tired.” Across 321 pages Professor Jeffers examines, explores and explains the crossroads of race, gender, memory and rememory and its enduring impact on Black women. This book frequently touches the third rail of brilliance, with a broad use of humor that serves to blunt the ever present tension of inter-racial interactions.
She doesn’t just focus there, she also delves into the oft-hushed intra-racial dealings that can fray the calmest of nerves(read colorism, hair texturism, nose shapism, classism, etc., etc.) The one theme that is consistent throughout is the resilience shown by Black women. Her mother was resilient, her grandmother was the very definition of resilience, often making a way when seemingly there was no way.
The book shines whenever Professor Fanonne Jeffers crafts the narrative from her searing courageous personal perspective, candidly sharing intimacies. She puts it all on the pages and we as readers are certainly better for it. I appreciate the earnestness and the unflinching criticism of society and social norms, then and now! Book is out now, don’t walk, run to the bookstore and grab your copy!
Professor Jeffers highlights the intersectional struggles that women face in an atmosphere of unrelenting patriarchy that leaves them often exhausted and “Fannie Lou Hamer Tired.” Across 321 pages Professor Jeffers examines, explores and explains the crossroads of race, gender, memory and rememory and its enduring impact on Black women. This book frequently touches the third rail of brilliance, with a broad use of humor that serves to blunt the ever present tension of inter-racial interactions.
She doesn’t just focus there, she also delves into the oft-hushed intra-racial dealings that can fray the calmest of nerves(read colorism, hair texturism, nose shapism, classism, etc., etc.) The one theme that is consistent throughout is the resilience shown by Black women. Her mother was resilient, her grandmother was the very definition of resilience, often making a way when seemingly there was no way.
The book shines whenever Professor Fanonne Jeffers crafts the narrative from her searing courageous personal perspective, candidly sharing intimacies. She puts it all on the pages and we as readers are certainly better for it. I appreciate the earnestness and the unflinching criticism of society and social norms, then and now! Book is out now, don’t walk, run to the bookstore and grab your copy!
August 4, 2025
Powerful, thoughtful, and fantastic collection of essays and writings.
July 3, 2025
Thank you to Harper Books and NetGalley for the free e-ARC in exchange for an honest review
Jeffers’ long-awaited follow-up book to The Love Songs W.E.B. DuBois marks her aspiration to be considered among the ranks of Toni Morrison, Alice Walker, and Angela Davis. Does she succeed with MISBEHAVING AT THE CROSSROADS? Ummm, not quite for me.
In large part this is due to an organizational issue. MISBEHAVING reads very much like a collection of shorter pieces she has published elsewhere and, in some cases, expanded for this book, thrown in haphazardly. I found the first half in particular to be less cohesive than the second half; it was hard to stay focused as Jeffers jumped from topic to topic in between essays, from the difficulty of tracing her Black American ancestry thanks to slavery, to the complexities of loving her family through abuse and inherited trauma.
Thankfully the audiobook became available through Libby, otherwise I would have had trouble finishing it. I think my issue with this collection is twofold: first, that it tries to cover soooo much, and second, it relies heavily on walking in the footsteps of greats like Morrison and Walker, to the point where the impact of Jeffers’ own words and ideas are overshadowed by her frequent references to her idols.
In MISBEHAVING, Jeffers writes about, among other things:
- racial microaggressions she receives as a Black person at school and in her workplace;
- the double challenges Black women face as they are buffeted between being support systems for patriarchal Black men or playing second fiddle to white women;
- living with, and loving, important family members that have failed to protect you from abuse.
There’s more. Way more. It’s ambitious, and perhaps a bit too sweeping for me, particularly as there wasn’t much in the way of progression as the essays go along, a direction or conclusion to reach.
Secondly, Jeffers clearly wants to position herself alongside the likes of Morrison, Walker, Davis, and other great Black female writers. I can believe that she will get there someday, but for me, I don’t think it’s happened with this essay collection. The challenge with relying so heavily on others’ writing in one’s book is that one’s own ideas will constantly be held up in comparison.
In MISBEHAVING, Jeffers uses Alice Walker’s own standout nonfiction, In Search of Our Mothers’ Gardens, as a sort of guide for her own nonfiction. She also repeatedly comes back to analyses of Morrison’s fiction and nonfiction to illustrate her own themes about Black female resilience, identity, race relations, etc. The result, though, is that I want to read more Morrison and Walker, not necessarily more Jeffers.
But Jeffers has decades ahead for her own writing career. She has proven herself capable of writing both niche/academic and mainstream poetry, fiction, and now nonfiction. I’d love to see how her themes will foment, and how her unique writing style will crystallize further the more she writes and publishes.
Jeffers’ long-awaited follow-up book to The Love Songs W.E.B. DuBois marks her aspiration to be considered among the ranks of Toni Morrison, Alice Walker, and Angela Davis. Does she succeed with MISBEHAVING AT THE CROSSROADS? Ummm, not quite for me.
In large part this is due to an organizational issue. MISBEHAVING reads very much like a collection of shorter pieces she has published elsewhere and, in some cases, expanded for this book, thrown in haphazardly. I found the first half in particular to be less cohesive than the second half; it was hard to stay focused as Jeffers jumped from topic to topic in between essays, from the difficulty of tracing her Black American ancestry thanks to slavery, to the complexities of loving her family through abuse and inherited trauma.
Thankfully the audiobook became available through Libby, otherwise I would have had trouble finishing it. I think my issue with this collection is twofold: first, that it tries to cover soooo much, and second, it relies heavily on walking in the footsteps of greats like Morrison and Walker, to the point where the impact of Jeffers’ own words and ideas are overshadowed by her frequent references to her idols.
In MISBEHAVING, Jeffers writes about, among other things:
- racial microaggressions she receives as a Black person at school and in her workplace;
- the double challenges Black women face as they are buffeted between being support systems for patriarchal Black men or playing second fiddle to white women;
- living with, and loving, important family members that have failed to protect you from abuse.
There’s more. Way more. It’s ambitious, and perhaps a bit too sweeping for me, particularly as there wasn’t much in the way of progression as the essays go along, a direction or conclusion to reach.
Secondly, Jeffers clearly wants to position herself alongside the likes of Morrison, Walker, Davis, and other great Black female writers. I can believe that she will get there someday, but for me, I don’t think it’s happened with this essay collection. The challenge with relying so heavily on others’ writing in one’s book is that one’s own ideas will constantly be held up in comparison.
In MISBEHAVING, Jeffers uses Alice Walker’s own standout nonfiction, In Search of Our Mothers’ Gardens, as a sort of guide for her own nonfiction. She also repeatedly comes back to analyses of Morrison’s fiction and nonfiction to illustrate her own themes about Black female resilience, identity, race relations, etc. The result, though, is that I want to read more Morrison and Walker, not necessarily more Jeffers.
But Jeffers has decades ahead for her own writing career. She has proven herself capable of writing both niche/academic and mainstream poetry, fiction, and now nonfiction. I’d love to see how her themes will foment, and how her unique writing style will crystallize further the more she writes and publishes.
June 8, 2025
This will be one of my top reads of the year. Full review to come.
September 16, 2025
This book is not for me; see black women’s reviews for a full understanding of what Dr. Jeffers offers in these essays. For white progressive readers, this work is a challenge to accountability. Dr. Jeffers reminds us of what we willfully ignore; we come from oppressors and still have the systematic power to act as oppressors ourselves. We must interrogate our own crossroads as Dr. Jeffers so beautifully explores hers.
September 17, 2025
4.5 stars. Excellent, thought-provoking collection of essays and autobiographical pieces. I wasn't sure what to expect from her nonfiction, knowing little about her but after having read the amazing _Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois_. Her (justifiable) rage comes through in her writing, as does her erudition, her humor, her honesty, and her empathy. I'm so very glad I read this.
Jeffers has said her book is about and for Black women--I encourage you to read reviews by Black women, as well. As of this writing, many of the ones on the first page of reviews appear to fall into that category.
Karen Chilton was fantastic as the narrator of the audiobook.
Jeffers has said her book is about and for Black women--I encourage you to read reviews by Black women, as well. As of this writing, many of the ones on the first page of reviews appear to fall into that category.
Karen Chilton was fantastic as the narrator of the audiobook.
November 4, 2025
4.5- she doesn’t mince words and it was well worth listening to them. I got a fresh perspective on several of her essay topics that I hadn’t considered before… some of her stories were a bit funny as she describes how she tells it like it is and doesn’t hold back though I’d hate to have some of that directed at me. I thought the essay style worked well to mitigate what otherwise might have felt a bit disorganized. The truths, the history, the stories and struggles I’m sure will resonate with me beyond the book.
October 8, 2025
Passionate and unapologetic
December 30, 2025
Top 10 of all time.
January 15, 2026
Beautiful and thought-provoking and heart-wrenching collection of pieces.
October 26, 2025
Seriously though, I do not encourage the reading of any contemporary essays alongside those of Toni Morrison (What Moves at the Margin). It's just not fair.
August 19, 2025
Magnificent. Breathtaking.
September 24, 2025
First I would like to speak on my struggles with this book and why it is not getting a full five star review. With some of the earlier essays, I struggled with the flow and following along with who was who and what was happening. There were a lot of names. The author has kindly put a family tree at the start of the book but for my visual mind I had a hard time following and was lacking clarity in my head. However, it did get easier as the book went on but at the start it was a lot to take in.
This is a collection of what it is like to be a Black woman in the United States. It is told through the author’s personal experiences, history, and honestly how those two things are connected. First and foremost, history is a façade. We have the surface level stuff that we learn in school but I know from personal experience a lot of people find that boring and don’t dig any deeper. If they did, they would be in for an awakening. Sure, it is great to hear that our country was founded for freedom and equality for all but let’s go back to those early times of when these lands were colonized. The straight white men who founded this country saw only those like them as equals, not Black and Brown people, or women. They did not see those people as people! They saw them as tools or objects. Therefore, that equality for all was for equality for those like them, the Founding Fathers.
That was their ideology at that time period in history. It was wrong but that was the way it was back then. Obviously things have changed, we are all people, and people realize that now. Therefore countries, governments, and laws all need to evolve like everything else does. Some people, the ones I listed earlier, are set up to systemically fail because they did not get rights until the last century. Those seeds are still being planted when straight white men have had four hundred years to do the same things. They’ve had all that time to accumulate jobs, power, and wealth. Professor Jeffers shows how all of this history has shaped her family and her life
The author of this book is not only Black but a woman as well. She is showing how this system, our country, is set up against her and other women like her. We have to believe and work for all of us to be truly equal.
This is a collection that is truly eye opening. It made me realize things that should be so blatantly obvious. She put words to things that I have seen but did not know how to explain. This summer, it seems like I have been on a quest of seeing how history is written and taught. This gave me the perspective of Black women in the United States. It is so easy to see that the author is so talented as a professor because she makes these hard ideas, these ideas that jolt everything you have been taught, easy to understand. It is so conversational. Easy to read and easy to have that light bulb moment that so many teachers hope to see in their students. This collection brought all of the emotions. It was so impactful and I definitely recommend it. You will get a fresh look at history.
This is a collection of what it is like to be a Black woman in the United States. It is told through the author’s personal experiences, history, and honestly how those two things are connected. First and foremost, history is a façade. We have the surface level stuff that we learn in school but I know from personal experience a lot of people find that boring and don’t dig any deeper. If they did, they would be in for an awakening. Sure, it is great to hear that our country was founded for freedom and equality for all but let’s go back to those early times of when these lands were colonized. The straight white men who founded this country saw only those like them as equals, not Black and Brown people, or women. They did not see those people as people! They saw them as tools or objects. Therefore, that equality for all was for equality for those like them, the Founding Fathers.
That was their ideology at that time period in history. It was wrong but that was the way it was back then. Obviously things have changed, we are all people, and people realize that now. Therefore countries, governments, and laws all need to evolve like everything else does. Some people, the ones I listed earlier, are set up to systemically fail because they did not get rights until the last century. Those seeds are still being planted when straight white men have had four hundred years to do the same things. They’ve had all that time to accumulate jobs, power, and wealth. Professor Jeffers shows how all of this history has shaped her family and her life
The author of this book is not only Black but a woman as well. She is showing how this system, our country, is set up against her and other women like her. We have to believe and work for all of us to be truly equal.
This is a collection that is truly eye opening. It made me realize things that should be so blatantly obvious. She put words to things that I have seen but did not know how to explain. This summer, it seems like I have been on a quest of seeing how history is written and taught. This gave me the perspective of Black women in the United States. It is so easy to see that the author is so talented as a professor because she makes these hard ideas, these ideas that jolt everything you have been taught, easy to understand. It is so conversational. Easy to read and easy to have that light bulb moment that so many teachers hope to see in their students. This collection brought all of the emotions. It was so impactful and I definitely recommend it. You will get a fresh look at history.
July 16, 2025
I absolutely loved Prof. Jeffers' novel The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois, so it was interesting to pick up this series of essays and other writings.
A self-proclaimed Black feminist, the author writes about her own life and family, as well as broader musings regarding the place of Black women our society.
The issue with books like this is that, as a collection, there is a propensity for the writings to become somewhat redundant when all pulled together. I preferred reading the author's opinion pieces (grounded in her experiences), all well-written, creative and pointed. The "memoir" portions didn't work as well for me, particularly as this is where I felt there was a lot of repetition.
Overall, enjoyed this read even if not as much as her novel.
A self-proclaimed Black feminist, the author writes about her own life and family, as well as broader musings regarding the place of Black women our society.
The issue with books like this is that, as a collection, there is a propensity for the writings to become somewhat redundant when all pulled together. I preferred reading the author's opinion pieces (grounded in her experiences), all well-written, creative and pointed. The "memoir" portions didn't work as well for me, particularly as this is where I felt there was a lot of repetition.
Overall, enjoyed this read even if not as much as her novel.
August 17, 2025
sad that professor jeffers' absolutely terrifying "rate my professor" reviews scared me away from her while she was at OU. It would've been an honor to have someone this brilliant call my writing trash
November 26, 2025
I really loved this one. I think it’s one of the best books I’ve read this year, and Karen Chilton did a great job narrating the audio version.
October 6, 2025
4.5 stars
I just have so much respect for Ms. Jeffers and her writing. She is so intelligent and wise; I give her a lot of credit for helping me further my understanding of my history and context through her talent. She has easily become my favorite modern Black author.
I just have so much respect for Ms. Jeffers and her writing. She is so intelligent and wise; I give her a lot of credit for helping me further my understanding of my history and context through her talent. She has easily become my favorite modern Black author.
July 11, 2025
This was a no brainer 5 stars! Everything that was said in this book was all true with the author weaving in the struggles of Black women getting the recognition, love, and respect they deserve with her own traumatic family history. I really resonated with alot of the themes. Usually I don't care for short stories or essay type books but this one just spoke to me in many ways!
June 25, 2025
In Misbehaving at the Crossroads, Honorée Fanonne Jeffers offers a soul-baring, intellectually rich collection that speaks directly to the lived experiences of Black women navigating identity, legacy, and public scrutiny. This book is part memoir, part cultural reckoning, and fully committed to truth-telling.
Jeffers writes from the crossroads of history, politics, and personal transformation where Black women must often improvise, survive, and carry generations on our backs. This collection will speak deeply to Black feminists, womanists, divorcees, survivors, and those still grieving unrealized political dreams. It holds space for the complexity of loving the Obamas while still longing for more radical change. Her open letter to Barack Obama alone is a must-read.
This work is not just reflective, for me, it was instructive. It asks us to consider how the intersections of race, gender, class, and legacy press against our sense of self. With sharp insight and emotional vulnerability, Jeffers delivers a masterwork of Black womanhood in motion. I am grateful she chose to share it.
For the misbehaving, the mourning, and the magnificent this book is balm.
Jeffers writes from the crossroads of history, politics, and personal transformation where Black women must often improvise, survive, and carry generations on our backs. This collection will speak deeply to Black feminists, womanists, divorcees, survivors, and those still grieving unrealized political dreams. It holds space for the complexity of loving the Obamas while still longing for more radical change. Her open letter to Barack Obama alone is a must-read.
This work is not just reflective, for me, it was instructive. It asks us to consider how the intersections of race, gender, class, and legacy press against our sense of self. With sharp insight and emotional vulnerability, Jeffers delivers a masterwork of Black womanhood in motion. I am grateful she chose to share it.
For the misbehaving, the mourning, and the magnificent this book is balm.
July 6, 2025
Professor Jeffers has so eloquently named us the misbehaving women. I see her. I feel her. I am her. #keepmisbehaving
July 4, 2025
I love this author but this kinda felt like a rant about her life.
September 24, 2025
I am not a member of the target audience for this book, but I felt it was an important read. It's good for this 75-year-old white woman to have her horizons expanded.
This first section is quite long but sets an important tone to helg me get a tiny glimpse of what it's like to be a black woman in America. I've also added a couple more impactful quotes:
"I grew so tired of that excuse about people voting for Trump because of the price of eggs, for I've been poor - truly poor - in my lifetime, and I've never been so foolish as to vote for a billionaire, thinking he'll rescue me from poverty.
"The media reached for anything but racism and sexism to explain Harris's defeat. If those were the reasons, then what would that say about the engrained prejudices of Americans? There had to be some other reason that, in 2024 59 percent of White men and 53 percent of White women voted for Trump. No, no, White supremacy, racism, and sexism couldn't be the motivator - right? Because some black voters hadn't voted for Harris, either; 9 percent of Black women and 24 percent of Black men had refused her as a candidate. And since those african Americans hadn't supported her, how could White supremacy and racism enter the chat?
"I'll tell you why. To paraphrase a contemporary Black proverb, it's one thing to talk about equality and equity, but it's quite another thing to be about it. Black women have been at the bottom of the United States' social heirarchy in general, and even within our Black communities we are oppressed. Why would everyone in the United States - even some Black folks - suddenly be okay with an African American woman occupying the most powerful position on earth?
"In their discussions of Harris's failure, the media somehow didn't remember that they had insisted Harris be perfect during her campaign. And wasn't that insistance on Black female perfection - while withstanding persecution - so familiar to me, as an African American woman in America?...
"I did not anticipate change overnight... Whenever I have voted... it has been for what is possible, not imminent. I have voted to inch things forward. My people are patient, and even more, Black women are faithful. I didn't expect global peace in my lifetime, but I expected it two or three generations down the path...
"When I consider Kamala Harris's campaign, I understand that this sister was expected not only to be perfect but to transcend perfection, taking on the role of moral Messiah - which not one of her White or African American male predecessors ever had attempted. Hrris was expected to instantly lead the citizens of the United States, a nation founded upon violent, White supremacist, global capitalist exploitation, into some new promised land. Harris was expected to do this before holding the power of the presidential office, for she was only a candidate seeking that job.
"So I understand how unfair many voters and the media were, when it came to the impossible standard that they expected Harris to meet, because I understand injustice - and in large part, I'm capable of that understanding because I'm a black woman living in the United States." pp 175-177
"I thought that if I'd just ignore my conscience and my professed politics, sooner or later I'd find my very own straight, benevolent patriarch to order me around and make me happy." p 217
"Like physically vulnerable tricksters in a folktale come to life, Black women have had few material weapons - few guns, few knives, smaller muscles, little to no protection from the law - but they've had their intellects and their spiriuality. Somehow, their descendants remain." p 220
"I know that for a radical, pro-LGBTQIA feminist, it may seem at odds with logic that I receive a daily snippet of biblical scripture each morning on my cell phone.
"I get the confusion, because I'm confused, too. For nearly forty years - ever since my first spiritual vision at eighteen, which led me to the acceptance of a higher power - I've been trying to reconcile my Christianity with my political and personal beliefs. Most times, I feel like a fool.
This morning, the snippet I received was from 2 Corinthians 4:18: 'So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal."
This first section is quite long but sets an important tone to helg me get a tiny glimpse of what it's like to be a black woman in America. I've also added a couple more impactful quotes:
"I grew so tired of that excuse about people voting for Trump because of the price of eggs, for I've been poor - truly poor - in my lifetime, and I've never been so foolish as to vote for a billionaire, thinking he'll rescue me from poverty.
"The media reached for anything but racism and sexism to explain Harris's defeat. If those were the reasons, then what would that say about the engrained prejudices of Americans? There had to be some other reason that, in 2024 59 percent of White men and 53 percent of White women voted for Trump. No, no, White supremacy, racism, and sexism couldn't be the motivator - right? Because some black voters hadn't voted for Harris, either; 9 percent of Black women and 24 percent of Black men had refused her as a candidate. And since those african Americans hadn't supported her, how could White supremacy and racism enter the chat?
"I'll tell you why. To paraphrase a contemporary Black proverb, it's one thing to talk about equality and equity, but it's quite another thing to be about it. Black women have been at the bottom of the United States' social heirarchy in general, and even within our Black communities we are oppressed. Why would everyone in the United States - even some Black folks - suddenly be okay with an African American woman occupying the most powerful position on earth?
"In their discussions of Harris's failure, the media somehow didn't remember that they had insisted Harris be perfect during her campaign. And wasn't that insistance on Black female perfection - while withstanding persecution - so familiar to me, as an African American woman in America?...
"I did not anticipate change overnight... Whenever I have voted... it has been for what is possible, not imminent. I have voted to inch things forward. My people are patient, and even more, Black women are faithful. I didn't expect global peace in my lifetime, but I expected it two or three generations down the path...
"When I consider Kamala Harris's campaign, I understand that this sister was expected not only to be perfect but to transcend perfection, taking on the role of moral Messiah - which not one of her White or African American male predecessors ever had attempted. Hrris was expected to instantly lead the citizens of the United States, a nation founded upon violent, White supremacist, global capitalist exploitation, into some new promised land. Harris was expected to do this before holding the power of the presidential office, for she was only a candidate seeking that job.
"So I understand how unfair many voters and the media were, when it came to the impossible standard that they expected Harris to meet, because I understand injustice - and in large part, I'm capable of that understanding because I'm a black woman living in the United States." pp 175-177
"I thought that if I'd just ignore my conscience and my professed politics, sooner or later I'd find my very own straight, benevolent patriarch to order me around and make me happy." p 217
"Like physically vulnerable tricksters in a folktale come to life, Black women have had few material weapons - few guns, few knives, smaller muscles, little to no protection from the law - but they've had their intellects and their spiriuality. Somehow, their descendants remain." p 220
"I know that for a radical, pro-LGBTQIA feminist, it may seem at odds with logic that I receive a daily snippet of biblical scripture each morning on my cell phone.
"I get the confusion, because I'm confused, too. For nearly forty years - ever since my first spiritual vision at eighteen, which led me to the acceptance of a higher power - I've been trying to reconcile my Christianity with my political and personal beliefs. Most times, I feel like a fool.
This morning, the snippet I received was from 2 Corinthians 4:18: 'So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal."
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