Rage On being queer, black, brilliant... and completely over it

Entertainment Weekly reporter Brathwaite turns his sharp eye on race, sexuality, and body image in this passionate debut memoir-in-essays. "It's just really hard sometimes," he writes in the opening chapter, "to not be Black enough for Black people, and to feel like an outsider among the gays." Building on that insight, he delivers 10 provocatively titled essays ("I Hate the Gays," "Fucking White Boys") that unpack the adverse effects of Eurocentric male beauty standards, analyze depictions of queer life in popular media, and probe the idea that Black genius was "cultivated in spite of society, never because of it." Throughout, Braithwaite's candor fluctuates between appealing and off-putting. For instance, his winking acknowledgement that he's "developed a really unhealthy obsession with myself" elicits smiles, while his characterization of injecting himself with steroids as "moderate, responsible drug use" necessary to keep up with the "extreme bodies currently prevalent" in bodybuilding will cause many readers to wince. For the most part, the heightened tonal register allows Brathwaite to effectively communicate his frustrations with white gay culture while reserving adoration for the people and art he loves. It makes for bracing reading. Agent: Robert Guinsler, Sterling Lord Literistic. (Sept.)

Debut memoir critiquing race and sexuality in contemporary America. Brathwaite,Entertainment Weekly writer and former editor ofOut magazine, invites readers into his love life and shares his experiences growing up in America as a Black queer person. Having moved from Guyana in 1990 at age four, he started bingeing American cable television, which significantly influenced his life. Because his mother enjoyed watching daytime soap operas, he was exposed to many shirtless men on screen, and they attracted his curiosity. "My first loves wereSaved by the Bell's Zack Morris andBlossom's Joey Russo," he confesses, but he began developing crushes on white boys in his real life too. One of them was Jake Capella, "my main antagonist throughout middle and high school, but, what can I say, I love a challenge." The media he consumed and Hollywood's depiction of straight white males affected the way Brathwaite viewed himself, and his desire for white men made him question his own identity: "I always thought Black masculinity was violent. Never tender. Never fatherly. Never loving." Yet, he sprinkles wit and humor in his critique and begs us to laugh with him: "If I don't believe that I'm, with all due respect to Trina, da baddest bitch, it's only a matter of time before I backslide into questioning if I'm even a worthwhile human being." More seriously, he engages in a thought-provoking critical discourse about how perceptions of masculinity are, in part, a product of the media. Despite the fact that America has a long way to go to overcome its race and gender biases, he ends on a positive note, stating that now is the best time to be a Black queer man, because he is allowed to be who he wants to be and not be punished for it. An honest exploration into Black queer identity. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.