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Book Summary and Reviews of Harriet Tubman by Bob the Drag Queen

Harriet Tubman by Bob the Drag Queen

Harriet Tubman

Live in Concert: A Novel

by Bob the Drag Queen

  • Critics' Consensus (4):
  • Published:
  • Mar 2025, 240 pages
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About this book

Book Summary

From RuPaul's Drag Race winner and host of HBO's We're Here comes an inventive, wondrous novel about American hero Harriet Tubman that remixes history into a fresh, dynamic novel about love, freedom, salvation, and hip-hop.

In an age of miracles where our greatest heroes from history have magically, unexplainably returned to shake us out of our confusion and hate, Harriet Tubman is back, and she has a lot to say.

Harriet Tubman and four of the enslaved persons she led to freedom want to tell their story in a unique way. Harriet wants to create a hip-hop album and live show about her life, and she needs a songwriter to help her.

She calls upon Darnell Williams, a once successful hip-hop producer who was topping the charts before being outed on a BET talk show. Darnell has no idea what to expect when he steps into the studio with Harriet, only that they have a short period of time to write a legendary album she can take on the road. Over the course of their time together, they not only create music that will take the country by storm, but confront the horrors of both their pasts, and learn to find a way to a better future.

Original, evocative, and historic, Harriet Tubman: Live in Concert is a landmark achievement that will burrow deep into our hearts (and ears).

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Reviews

Media Reviews

"Vivacious ... The reverence for Harriet, 'America's first Black superhero,' makes her feel alive on the page. It's a knockout." —Publishers Weekly (starred review)

"The first novel from TV host and RuPaul's Drag Race winner Bob the Drag Queen vibes with energy and humor but never wavers in its focus on the resilience and power of Black Americans, 'made out of something stronger than steel and diamonds combined,' and the universal passion for liberation." —Booklist (starred review)

"A well-intentioned but ill-executed speculative work." —Kirkus Reviews

"Yes, it's true: that Bob the Drag Queen wrote a novel and it is about Harriet Tubman coming back to life and making a hip-hop album. You already know you're on board, as well you should be: the novel is funny and wild and sharp, about fame and race and creativity and America. Harriet's is a show not to be missed." —LitHub

This information about Harriet Tubman was first featured in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.

Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.

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Author Information

Bob the Drag Queen

Bob the Drag Queen is a television host, actor, activist, and the season eight winner of RuPaul's Drag Race.

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