An unabashed celebration of Lorde ... There is no room for Lorde’s flaws in this book; she is a goddess, an avatar, an icon. As an entry point into Lorde’s poetry, though, Gumbs’s persuasive close readings create a virtuous circle, shining a light on how the life generated the poems, which now elucidate that life ... Gumbs honors Lorde’s desire for an expansive legacy.
It often reads like a collection of essays intended to continue Lorde’s own project of self-mythologizing ... There are also many places where Gumbs hypothesizes when there’s a lack of information, which then becomes an exercise of imaginatively expanding the idea of Lorde, rather than documenting her life ... Though these elisions and inventions are shortcomings, they also speak to the book’s worthwhile attempt to change what a biography can be ... By recounting Lorde’s story outside linear chronology, and putting her alongside the rivers, forests, radio waves and obsidian, Gumbs is faithful to her subject’s great desire to be something more eternal. But Survival Is a Promise finally shows that this cosmic life is achieved through grounded and deep human work.
Moving beyond an attempt at straightforwardly reconstructing events in her life, Gumbs disintegrates, rearranges and examines all the matter that created Lorde, enabling her to unearth the many layers of feeling evoked by her lesser known poetry ... Her writing mimics the tempo of the breathwork she practices, with some passages written like long, slow inhalations, with the turn of a page prompting an an exhale. Ultimately, she shows us the kind of complex and radiant scholarship that emerges when scholars dig deeper, refusing to treat the life and work of Black feminist figures as self-evident.
Lorde has found the perfect interlocutor. Gumbs’ writing is multilayered, poetic and beautiful, making this book more than a biography. It’s a meeting of two minds.
A scintillating tour de force ... Gumbs is a master stylist with a knack for writing sentences at once direct and expansive ... This is a feast for the intellect—and the soul.
