I always keep an eye on dystopian books. I feel that the most successful ones are authored by people that have the ability to see beyond our present into a very imaginable future. I think back on books like Fahrenheit 451, A Clockwork Orange, Feed, Animal Farm. All of these books imagined something that might have felt extreme at the time, but reading them now in the present that the author imagined, I begin to see parallels. I always look at where and when the author existed in history and I can connect the dots and see what went wrong that allowed the words of an imagined reality to haunt our present. Dystopians don't entertain me as much as they shake me awake using fictional narratives laden with the truth of where we are in the past and present history of our lives.
Crosshairs follows Canada in the wake of a "Reconstruction". A world leader has sewn seeds of terror and promises of violence at the hands of those who look and identify differently from the rest of the community. His solution? Round up everyone that does not fall in the superior category of white and straight. The people outside of these parameters are labeled "Others" and are rounded up to be imprisoned in work camps. We meet our main character Queen Kay, a Drag Queen on the run from the government's enforcers. He hides in the basement of someone he hopes he can trust to keep him hidden and nourished.
I wish I could sit here typing this in the after tremors of having read Crosshairs and confidently state "there is no way we would ever allow this to happen to the Black and Indigenous People of Color in our community. We wouldn't round up our friends and family members that identify somewhere in the brilliance of the LGBTQIA+ rainbow. That would take so much silence and ignorance!" The parallels of where this book starts and where reality begins holds little to no fiction. The recognition of this forced me to keep reading when I really wanted to put this down and pick up something light.
The writing here was emotionally challenging to read through. After only a couple pages, I felt the bond of my attachment to the characters, but the author had already laid a very clear picture of where this story was headed and it filled me with so much worry for the characters I had come to love.
Recently my husband and I were discussing books that left us with very clear mental images anytime we saw the cover or heard the title. We both named books that we could clearly recall specific scenes in the book we had imagined in our heads , thanks to the powerful imagery the author had put to work. Crosshairs left me with so many mental imaginings that will long outlast the ending of this novel. Some imaginings give me hope, some make me take stock of what I have allowed through the violence of my silence.
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️/5 stars
Content Warning:
homophobia, racism, scenes of violence and torture.
Thank you to Netgalley and Atria Publishing for a copy of Crosshairs in exchange for an honest review!
Crosshairs is out now, and available on bookshelves near you!
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