If This Album Were a Book: Jazmine Sullivan’s Heaux Tales

May 25
3 min read

If Heaux Tales were a book, darling, it wouldn’t just be found—it would be discovered, like a secret you weren’t supposed to hear but can’t stop replaying in your mind. You’d stumble upon it behind a beaded curtain in a bookstore that time forgot, where the air is heavy with incense and the whispers of a thousand confessions hang low like smoke. The sign reads “21+ Only,” not as a warning—but a promise.

The cover? A sun-faded, satin-wrapped treasure from 1978. Deep crimson with gold foil lettering, a ghost of a lipstick kiss on the back cover, and a martini glass ring on page 42—the page everyone keeps flipping to. Inside, it's not just one story. It's a quilt of voices, stitched together by heartbreak, sex, shame, survival, and something exquisitely rebellious.

✦ The Theme:

Radical honesty and sultry reclamation. This is not your mother’s romance novel—unless your mother was the kind who kept love letters in a fireproof safe and stashed her favorite vibrator in the freezer. Heaux Tales is an exploration of modern womanhood: raw, sexual, flawed, and hungry—for respect, for orgasms, for peace. It’s emotional jazz in paperback form—staccato and soulful, messy and magnificent.

✦ The Personas:

Rashida – The woman who left the club at 2 AM and cried in the Uber because she just wanted him to text “Did you get home safe?” She’s sensual, soft, and tired of being strong. Think: a nurse in Houston who listens to tarot readings on YouTube and sleeps in lace lingerie she bought for herself.
Nikki – The friend who always has the tea and never tells you she’s hurting too. Her tale smells like Hennessy and hesitation. She's a hairstylist with a custom playlist for every client, every breakup, every summer.
Simone – The married man’s muse who knows better but does it anyway. She writes poetry on hotel notepads and deletes every message she knows she’ll regret later.
Tasha – Fresh out of a four-year situationship, wearing a new wig and a new boundary. Her voice cracks when she says she’s fine—but don’t test her, she’s not above spinning the block.

Each chapter is narrated by a different woman, unapologetically. No character arcs, no neat endings—just soul-bearing monologues, erotic fragments, and the diary entries you swore you deleted.

✦ Visual Aesthetic:

Imagine a photo series shot on grainy 35mm film:

Lip gloss smudged on cigarette filters
Fishnet tights tangled on brass bedposts
Nail polish chipped from dialing his number again
Gold bamboo earrings tossed on a motel nightstand
A torn love letter folded into a Bible’s back cover

The book would feel like a basement lounge bathed in red light. Plush. Sensual. Sacred. Think vintage erotica meets Black girl memoir with cover art that belongs on the wall of a speakeasy curated by Sade and Octavia Butler.

✦ The Whimsy:

But don’t be fooled by the pain—Heaux Tales is also a love letter. To ourselves. To our ability to survive the mess and still strut out the house smelling like Baccarat and vengeance. It winks at us, like a well-timed DM from the ex you finally learned not to answer. It’s a book that laughs in your face mid-cry, then hands you a glass of brown liquor and says, “Let’s write about this tomorrow.”

✦ The Closing Thought:

If Heaux Tales were a book, I wouldn’t loan it out. I’d underline it in red, tuck notes in the margins, and keep it on the nightstand like a bible. Or maybe, like a mirror.

Because in every sultry sentence, every confession wrapped in silk and sin, I see a woman I’ve been. A woman I’ve judged. A woman I’ve loved.

And maybe the real tale is this: We’re all just trying to figure out how to be holy and heaux at the same time.

April Sheris

(as told with a martini in hand and glitter on my heels)