GIN SEXSMITH
Gin Sexsmith is a Mohawk writer and musician from Tyendinaga Mohawk Territory, and member of the Mohawks of the Bay of Quinte First Nation. Obsessed with the darker sides of our psyche, Gin’s work explores love, loss, sexuality, and mental illness.
IN THE HANDS OF MEN
Haunted by the loss of her cousin, Cedar, Delilah has curated a world of revenge: playing judge, jury, and executioner while, you know, searching for love. Maybe murdering gives her the control she craves. Maybe it fills the gaping hole that was left when Cedar disappeared. Maybe her rage is ancestral, dating back to all of the Indigenous women before her whose cases were closed without much of a search. She’s never been close to getting caught, but as a virus ripples through the world, devolving men into animals, she gets a little sloppy. Now she must ask herself, is she a monster too or is she simply taking her power back from the hands of men?
from the author
In the Hands of Men not only encapsulates stories of violence at the hands of men, it also tells a story of a woman whose life is dictated by male validation. Delilah despises the male gaze as much as she craves it. It reveals the struggle of placing yourself in the passenger seat of your own life. It questions who we would be without the emotional, mental, and physical trauma that men seem to inflict on us so carelessly. It evaluates familial structures and what it’s like growing up with a father who doesn’t truly respect women — how it shapes daughters when they see their own mothers being devalued by their fathers, what that tells them about their place in the world once they grow up. It plots revenge against the men who take pleasure in abusing women. It notes how Indigenous girls and women are much more likely to be abused, and much less likely to have justice.
ITHOM also tells a story of bi longing. It shows how easy it is for bi women to be chosen by men, letting their relationships with women be overly sexualized or cast as less important than their relationships with men.
It is the kind of novel I wish I had when I was growing up, so I wrote it myself.
konnorónhkwa,
Gin
"The function of art is to do more than tell it like it is — it's to imagine what is possible."
bell hooks
