Pulitzer Prize nominee Linda Villarosa's book UNDER THE SKIN examines why Black Americans’ health outcomes are so much worse than those of white Americans.
Hallman has also embedded Anarcha’s story in gloriously rich detail from the nineteenth century, ranging from comet showers to train derailments to international espionage in the court of Louis Napoleon. That panorama alone makes the book a riveting read. But despite the scope and the glitter, Hallman never allows us to lose sight of Anarcha: her exploitation, her humanity, the embodied Black womanhood that left her so exposed to others’ whims and schemes. Hallman’s novelistic writing and brisk pacing had me eagerly turning pages, alternately aghast at and elevated by this story of human depravity, ambition, resilience, and vulnerability. It is surely one of the most important books of the year, and certainly among the most compelling.
Under the Skin by Linda Villarosa explores how systemic and local racism affects Black people's health, causing them to "live sicker and die quicker" through a journey that takes the reader from birth to death and demonstrates the injustices throughout.