Dear Queer Self – An Experiment in Memoir

Jonathan Alexander

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Paperback

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English

Acre Books
14 March 2022

Autobiography: general; Memoirs; Gay & Lesbian studies

An unvarnished accounting of one man’s struggle toward sexual and emotional maturity.

In this unconventional memoir, Jonathan Alexander addresses wry and affecting missives to a conflicted younger self. Focusing on three years—1989, 1993, and 1996—Dear Queer Self follows the author through the homophobic heights of the AIDS epidemic, the fall of the Berlin Wall, the election of Bill Clinton, and the steady advancements in gay rights that followed. With humor and wit afforded by hindsight, Alexander relives his closeted college years, his experiments with his sexuality in graduate school, his first marriage to a woman, and his budding career as a college professor.

As he moves from tortured self-denial to hard-won self-acceptance, the author confronts the deeply uncomfortable ways he is implicated in his own story. More than just a coming-out narrative, Dear Queer Self is both an intimate psychological exploration and a cultural examination—a meshing of inner and outer realities and a personal reckoning with how we sometimes torture the truth to make a life. It is also a love letter, an homage to a decade of rapid change, and a playlist of the sounds, sights, and feelings of a difficult, but ultimately transformative, time.

By: Jonathan Alexander
Imprint: Acre Books
Country of Publication: United States
Dimensions: Height: 216mm, Width: 140mm, Spine: 13mm
Weight: 228g
ISBN: 9781946724465
ISBN 10: 1946724467
Pages: 180
Publication Date: 14 March 2022
Audience: General/trade , ELT Advanced
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active

Jonathan Alexander is a writer and podcaster living in Southern California. His previous creative nonfiction includes Creep: A Life, a Theory, an Apology; Bullied: The Story of an Abuse; and Stroke Book: The Diary of a Blindspot. He is the Chancellor’s Professor of English at the University of California, Irvine.

Reviews for Dear Queer Self – An Experiment in Memoir

The narration is a triumph, establishing instant intimacy. Alexander serves as simultaneous director, guide, and archivist. . . . Dear Queer Self is an intense, daring coming-of-age-and coming out-memoir. * Foreword Reviews, starred review *