J.C.

Hallman

Guggenheim Fellow

Award Winning Non-Fiction Author

Travels from: Tulsa, Oklahoma

“Rigorous and innovative. . . .Hallman successfully transforms Anarcha from historical object to subject, and shines a light on the contentious rise of medical ethics in the 19th century. It’s a must-read.”―Publishers Weekly

J.C. Hallman grew up in Southern California. He studied writing at the University of Pittsburgh, the Writing Seminars at Johns Hopkins, and the Iowa Writers’ Workshop.

Hallman’s nonfiction combines memoir, history, journalism, and travelogue. His first book, The Chess Artist, tells the story of Hallman’s friendship with chess player Glenn Umstead. His second, The Devil is a Gentleman, is an intellectual apprenticeship with philosopher William James. In Utopia explores the history of utopian literature in the context of visits to six modern utopias in various stages of realization. Wm & H’ry examines the copious correspondence of William and Henry James. And B & Me is an account of Hallman’s literary relationship with Nicholson Baker.

Hallman has also published a book of short stories, The Hospital for Bad Poets, and edited two anthologies of “creative criticism,” The Story About the Story and The Story About the Story II. Among other honors, Hallman was a recipient of a 2010 McKnight Artist Fellowship in fiction, and a 2013 Fellowship from the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation in the general non-fiction category.

In 2015, Hallman discovered the first evidence that proved the existence of the young, enslaved woman known as Anarcha, the so-called first cure of the diabolical “father of gynecology,” J. Marion Sims. In making significant contributions to the histories of slavery and medicine, Hallman’s dual biography, Say Anarcha, excavates and centers Anarcha’s story, and provides a much-needed corrective to the false narrative of Sims’s career.

J.C.'s Featured Titles

The Search for Anarcha

Lecture and slide presentation detailing the search for Anarcha, the so-called “first cure” of diabolical surgeon, J. Marion Sims. The story begins with a 1928 plantation inventory that provides the first evidence of Anarcha’s life that did not come from Sims’s own suspect writings, and travels all the way to the remote forest in Virginia, where Anarcha is buried alongside her husband. The surprising picaresque of Anarcha’s life reveals that the “first cure” of J. Marion Sims was never fully cured, and that her life story eventually intertwined with the legacy of Thomas Jefferson.

The Sims Legacy

Lecture and slide presentation that examines the many claims that Sims and his champions have made in regard to his contributions to medicine. The talk systematically debunks each of Sims’s claims to fame, and situates him as more showman and propagandist than true medical pioneer. The lecture indicts the broader medical establishment that aided and abetted Sims’s fraudulent biographical facade, but also highlights the efforts made by Sims’s greatest critics — often his assistants, also members of the medical community — to question his many false assertions.

The Women of Say Anarcha

Lecture and slide presentation detailing the many women who play a role in Say Anarcha. Not only is there Anarcha, Lucy, Betsey, and the group of enslaved women who made up Sims’s initial group of experimental subjects in Alabama, there is also the many Irish immigrants who, having fled Ireland’s potato famine on board “coffin ships,” came to be experimented on by Sims in New York City. In addition, there is the story of Woman’s Hospital’s “Board of Lady Managers” (featuring philanthropists Sarah Platt Doremus and Caroline Lane), who fought to have Sims ousted form the hospital he founded in 1855. As well, there is Mary L. Booth, who worked for Sims for a time while also working as a NY Times reporter (and likely betrayed Sims to the state department); Lydia Maria Child, the author and abolitionist; and Maria Jefferson Carr Randolph, a great-granddaughter of Thomas Jefferson, who was Anarcha’s final owner.

Sims as Confederate Spy

Lecture and slide presentation focusing on the second half of Say Anarcha, which becomes a Civil War narrative. Brand new to the book is the revelation that Sims worked as a spy on behalf of the Confederacy in Paris during the war, serving as an informal contact between the South’s formal diplomats in France and Napoleon III. This lecture delves into the intrigue of the war as France and England considered entering the conflict on the side of the Confederate States, and returns to the story of Anarcha when her enslaver, William L. Maury, is given command of one of the South’s “privateers,” which were eventually permitted to dock in French ports for repairs. Sims’s time as a spy during the war has gone completely overlooked in both Civil War history, and his own biographies.

The Chess Artist: “Vivid journeys through the territories of friendship, passion for a game, and chess history. Readers who may be indifferent to the game of chess will be charmed by the people, politics, exhibitions, and backrooms of this world.”―The Boston Globe

The Devil is a Gentleman: “Hallman is an uncommonly insightful and humane guide….His chapter about the Texan Christian Wrestling Federation is a small masterpiece of first-person reportage.”―The San Francisco Chronicle

The Hospital for Bad Poets: “Hallman reconfigures our everyday errors and flaws into deeply affecting fiction…[he] is wonderfully bright.”―New York Times Sunday Book Review

In Utopia: “Hallman aims to reclaim utopia from its ugliest manifestations. He explores each of these projects with a skeptic’s interest, looking not to valorize or ridicule, but to understand.”―The Fiddleback

Wm & H’ry: “[A] fleet, beautiful little book…J.C. Hallman immerses himself in the complete extant correspondence of the James brothers to tell a new tale.”―3 Quarks Daily

B & Me: “Unabashed enthusiasm and wit about living with a deep relationship with books…I fell in love with Hallman’s book.”―San Francisco Chronicle

Say Anarcha: “Innovating and riveting….Hallman successfully transforms Anarcha from historical object to subject, and shines a light on the contentious rise of medical ethics in the 19th century. It’s a must-read.”―Starred review, Publisher’s Weekly

Anarcha Archive Link