Amy Schneider. 40-game Jeopardy! champion. Tournament of Champions winner. The most successful woman ever to compete on Jeopardy!, as well as the only out trans person to compete in, and win, the Tournament of Champions. And now, she’s an author, with In The Form of a Question: The Joys and Rewards of a Curious Life, to be published October 3, 2023 from Avid Reader Press/S&S Inc.
The opening paragraph of Amy’s Author’s Note definitely makes it clear that we are discussing adult content. Amy opens, “I have many young fans, but this book isn’t written for a young audience. So if you’re reading this, and if your parents ever tell you that you’re took young to read or watch certain things, then I’d ask you not to read this one, not without asking your parents first. I’ll write one for you soon.” Certainly, this book has more salacious parts that the media will (and, to a degree, already has) focus on for clicks to their websites. But those parts are incredibly important to understand Amy’s overall life journey and life story.
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From a Jeopardy! perspective, Amy makes similar points to those that Ken Jennings made in Brainiac: basically, the most successful Jeopardy! contestants are those that are really good at making connections between things in their brains (and being able to recall those connections quickly.) Amy highlights a single clue (RIGHT FROM THE GECKO $1000 in her 8th game) that explains how she knew the correct response to that clue—oviparous. She also makes an interesting observation regarding Jeopardy! skill and the real world: “That skill, to cut through imprecise and convoluted language to recognize the real question, is the only Jeopardy! skill that’s useful in daily life”—and I can’t really disagree with that.
I don’t think I’m exaggerating when I say that Amy Schneider has done—and will likely do—more for the positive representation of trans people in America than anybody else in this decade. If you read this book, you will absolutely get a sense of the life of a trans woman, from the gender dysphoria to the “egg cracking” (the point when a trans person realizes that they are trans) to life after transition and being the target of significant harassment from a sadly increasing minority of the world’s population in 2023. I will go as far as to predict that there are going to be a significant number of closeted trans people who will point to Amy’s Jeopardy! run and her book as an inspiration to them and a realization that their own lived experience is not singular. And for that, I think a lot of people can and will be very thankful for this book.
In The Form of a Question: The Joys and Rewards of a Curious Life, will be published October 3, 2023 from Avid Reader Press/S&S Inc.
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