Book Description
With heart, humor, and razor-sharp observation, this intimate and incisive memoir traces the journey of a Black, queer woman as she searches the world for a place of security and acceptance to call home
I’ve never seen home as a permanent concept; it is an image crafted from untempered glass that threatens to shatter with lack of care.
Jennifer Neal was born in the United States to a family that moved continuously for their own survival and well-being—from the Great Migration to modern day. Since growing up, she has continued to travel the world across two decades and four continents.
As Jennifer moves from Japan to Chicago, Australia to Germany (where she has settled for now), she weaves her story of immigration with the local Black histories and politics to provide context for her experiences. A vulnerable and sometimes heart-breaking narrative, this book is both a tender tribute to immigrants and their stories as well as a searing indictment of how contemporary discourse endangers them.
This generous personal record is both a crucial examination of how race plays the foundational role of modern-day immigration systems, as well as how racism is the true scourge sweeping across a western world—crossing border walls and threatening global society. The result is an urgent tale of culture-shock and self-discovery, one that sheds light on the courage it takes for anyone to leave one land for another.
An unwavering interrogation of colonialism and policy, love and loss, hypocrisy and resistance, My Pisces Heart demands meaningful conversation on not only the ways in which we live with our histories, but also how they live through us—urging an honest dialogue on why the West continues to grapple with its past, and visualize its future.
Praise For This Book
"My Pisces Heart is a much-needed excavation of what it means to be a migrant of colour in our present world. Jennifer Neal offers a masterclass in politically-engaged memoir: rarely have I encountered a book so nuanced, gracefully entwining deep research with lived experience. Whether you live life in motion or stay put, this book is essential reading." —Jessica J. Lee, author of Dispersals"A vital and gripping voice on migration, displacement and home. And a propulsive, thoughtful memoir from a fascinating life. I couldn't stop reading it!" —Dina Nayeri, author of Who Gets Believed? and The Ungrateful Refugee
“My Pisces Heart is an instant travel classic, an essential chronicle of migration and, above all, an absolute joy to read. It’s required reading for anyone looking to re-create themselves in this precarious new age, as Neal does time and again—with the rigor of an academic and the palette of a poet.” —Monica Byrne, author of The Actual Star
