Ma Lineal: A Memoir of Race, Activism, and Queer Family

An inspiring memoir about love, race, identity, and contested narratives told with unflinching mettle.

Through her childhood spent in 1940s New York being raised by two mothers, her work with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee during the Civil Rights Movement, and raising her own children in the coalfields of West Virginia, Faith S. Holsaert has been defined by the intertwined forces of race, activism, and family. As a young woman on the front line of the Civil Rights Movement, she learned the power of contested narratives and came to understand her whiteness, her queer identity, and her stakes in overturning racism. Later in life, she confronted sexual abuse and mental illness across three generations of women in her family to find that these painful histories have played a significant role in the development of her identity as a woman, activist, and mother. Through a lifetime laid bare in prose and poetry, Holsaert beautifully quilts memoir, social history, and historic events into a gripping and inspirational narrative. This powerful and structurally innovative work lends new categories of meaning to those who would strive to find their place, hope, and sense of belonging in efforts to fight against systemic racism and lead lives characterized by openness and love.

Faith S. Holsaert is an activist, poet, and author. She began her life as an activist during the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). She has since remained active in the community and has published two collections of poetry and coedited a collection of stories of women in the SNCC. She and her partner, Vicki Smith, reside in Durham, North Carolina, and have eleven grandchildren.